The Monkey and the Crocodile

5-7 min read
14 pages

The monkey and the crocodile, a Panchatantra tale to read aloud. They become friends over figs, and then the crocodile's wife wants something.

On the bank of a wide river there grew a fig tree, and in the fig tree lived a monkey, and the figs were the sweetest for a hundred miles.

A crocodile came up onto the mud below one afternoon, and the monkey, who had more figs than he could eat, dropped a few down to him.

The crocodile had never tasted anything like it. He came back the next day, and the day after, and by the end of the month the two of them talked every afternoon while the river went by.

«Take some home for your wife,» said the monkey one evening, and filled the crocodile's mouth with the ripest ones.

The crocodile's wife ate them and was quiet for a while. Then she said: «If the figs are this sweet, think what the heart of the creature who eats them every day must be like. Bring me the monkey.»

The crocodile said no. She stopped eating. She said he had never given her anything. She said a good deal more than that, over three days, and on the fourth he went to the fig tree.

«Come to dinner,» he said. «My wife wants to thank you. I'll carry you across on my back.»

So the monkey climbed onto the crocodile's back, and they went out into the river, and when the bank was a long way behind them the crocodile began to sink.

«Hold on,» said the monkey. «What are you doing?» «I am sorry,» said the crocodile. «My wife wants your heart.»

The monkey did not shout and did not struggle. He said: «Well, why didn't you say so on the bank?»

The crocodile stopped sinking. «What?»

«We monkeys don't carry our hearts about with us,» said the monkey. «It's far too dangerous, up in a tree all day. We leave them hanging in the branches. Mine is in the fig tree. Take me back and I'll fetch it.»

The crocodile turned round and swam for the bank as fast as he could go, and the monkey held on tight and said nothing more the whole way.

At the bank the monkey went up the trunk in three jumps and out along the branch where he was safe. «There it is,» he called down. «Up here. Where it has always been, and where it is staying. Go home and tell your wife I understood the invitation perfectly.»

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Text source: From the Panchatantra, the Sanskrit collection of animal fables compiled around 300 BC. Public domain. The text was written anew for Marytale — it is not a reprint of anyone else's version.

Where «The Monkey and the Crocodile» comes from and who wrote it down

The Monkey and the Crocodile

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