The Lion and the Jackal
One day, a young lion was hunting in the hills
when he found a cave. “This cave would make a
perfect home for our family,” he thought. “It will
shelter us at night, and each morning we can go
down to the river to catch some food. In fact, I
think I’ll catch some now,” and he bounded
down the hillside towards the river.
The young lion raced along the muddy bank and
hurled himself over a bush in an attempt to catch
a deer. He missed and landed instead right in the
middle of a patch of deep mud. He struggled to
get free, but the more he struggled, the deeper
he sank.
“Oh no! I’m stuck!” he gasped. “What can I do
now? Perhaps, if I roar loud enough, one of the
other lions may hear me.”
All day long, the young lion roared, but no one
came. He remained stuck in the mud, which had
begun to dry, making it even harder for him to
move.
“Who can possibly help me?” he groaned. “My
friends don’t know where I am, and all the other
animals are afraid of me. I’m going to die here.”
For a whole week, he lay trapped in the mud.
“I’m done for,” he thought. But suddenly he
heard a sniffing noise.
“Please help!” he gasped.
A grey head peered cautiously around the bush.
It was a jackal.
“Don’t run away, jackal,” said the lion. “Please
save me.”
“Why should I save you?” replied the jackal.
“You’d just eat me as soon as you were out of
that mud.”
“If you help me now, I will always be your
friend,” said the lion. “Everything I catch I will
share with you and your family.”
The jackal knew that if she did not help him, he
would slowly starve to death.
“Do you promise?” she asked.
“As the king of the beasts, I give you my word,”
said the lion.
Very cautiously, she crept across the dried mud
towards the lion. Then she began to dig.
“It would help if we had some water to soften
the mud,” she said. So she found a coconut shell
and started to carry water to pour round the
lion’s legs.
“You loosen the mud around your paws and I’ll
push from under your stomach,” said the jackal.
“One last effort and you’ll be free.” And she
stood back, hoping that she had been right to
trust him.
“Thank you, jackal,” said the lion. “Thank you
for trusting me; thank you for helping me. From
now on, I will always be your friend.” With that,
the lion went off and caught some food for them
both. And so it was that the lion and the jackal
became good friends.
One day, the lion and the jackal sat together on
the ledge by the the river.
“Why don’t we all live here?” said the lion. “We
could shelter in these caves and even take turns
to look after the little ones.”
“What a great idea!” replied the jackal. The next
day, the lions and the jackals all moved into their
new home. Within a few hours, the lion cubs and
the little jackal pups were making friends, playing
together and chasing each other over the rocks.
As the dry months passed, the river dwindled and
the lush green grass became brown and
shrivelled. Each day the lion and the jackal hunted together but food became hard to find.
The lion kept to his word and they shared out
the catch, even when there was not really
enough to go around. All the animals began to
feel rather grumpy and bad-tempered.
One day, two of the older lions sat on the ledge
watching the hunt.
“Just look at our young lion down there wasting
his time. There’s not enough food to go around,
and our catch is still shared with all those
jackals.”
“Yes,” agreed the other. “It’s time we got rid of
them and all their noisy pups.” And so they went
on.
Unfortunately, one of the sharp-eared jackals
playing nearby overheard the old lions moaning
and immediately went off and told his friends.
“Those smelly old lions do nothing but sleep all
day,” he complained. “And that young lion
wouldn’t catch anything without the help of our
cunning mother jackal.”
Before long, other rumours and tales were being
told. The lion cubs and jackal pups began to
squabble and fight when they played together.
When anything went wrong, the lions would
blame the jackals, and the jackals would blame
the lions!
Then, one day when food was so scarce that no
one had eaten for several days, one of the old
lions spotted a jackal pup carrying a bone in its
jaws.
“Those good-for-nothing jackals must be
catching food and keeping it all for themselves,”
he growled, and roughly snatched the bone from
the puppy.
“Just look at this,” he said to the young lion,
dropping the bone in front of him. “As well as
sharing our food, those sly jackals are catching
meat and keeping it for themselves. It’s time we
drove them out of here.”
“It is a puzzle,” said the young lion, “but the
mother jackal is my friend. I will ask her about
this.”
So he took the bone over to where she sat. One
of the jackal puppies was crying.
“..and then that old lion took my bone away,”
whimpered the little pup.
The jackal shook her head as the young lion
approached.
“This is no good,” she said. “If we cannot live
happily together we shall have to leave this
ledge. How can we trust the lions when they
steal from our pups?”
“Where did the pup get this food from?” asked
the young lion.
“This isn’t fresh food,” said the mother jackal.
“He’s saved this bone from the catch we made
last week.”
“Of course; now I understand,” said the lion. “I
knew that we could trust each other. Spreading
rumours and telling tales has undermined our
friendship.”
That night, he called the lion family together. He
told them all about how the jackal had saved his
life, and about the promise he had made to share
his catch with the jackals and not harm them.
The other lions hung their heads in shame.
“We are sorry,” they said. “We had no idea. If
that jackal had not trusted you and helped you,
you would have died. Our unkind words have
caused a lot of trouble and unhappiness. We
must go and apologise at once.”
And so they did - and from that day on, the two
families lived as friends.