Reading Diary B: Twenty Jataka Tales

For Part B of this week's reading, I read the short story "The Swan Kingdom" out of Twenty Jataka Tales.  This story told of a swan community that lived in a beautiful lake in the Himalayas, led by a noble king and his loyal companion.  There is another king that wishes to draw this swan colony in so that he can talk to their king and he lures them in by building a beautiful lake that is even better than the one the swans live in.  He then sends out an invitation to all birds saying they can come live there and eventually word gets to the swan kingdom and they want to leave their lake and move to the new one.  The king's loyal companion warns him that the move might not be a good idea because they don't know what lies ahead, but they move anyways.  The swan king then gets caught in a trap and his companion stays with him while all the other swans flee.  The king that caught them is astonished by the loyalty and lets them go, parting on good terms.  It's a weird coincidence that earlier this week I chose to do a reading about a king that gets hurt and all of his subjects leave, and then this time I read a story about a king that gets caught and has one loyal subject remain with him, both ending with the person holding them captive feeling great admiration for their captive over this and letting them go.  The moral of this story was companionship and loyalty.