Reading Diary A: Twenty Jataka Tales

This week's first reading was over the story "The Tortoise and the Geese" from Twenty Jataka Tales.  In this short story, there is a tortoise who is asked by his two geese friends if he would come to the cave up in the mountains that they live in to stay with them.  He agrees to go and they carry him off into the air by placing a stick in his mouth and grabbing on to either side of the stick before flying off towards the mountains.  When they pass over a small town, children begin to laugh at the tortoise and this makes him angry; so angry that he cannot hold his tongue and begins to yell at them.  In doing so, he lets go of the stick and falls to the ground, landing in the king's court.  The king, who is described as a man with a very kind heart but far too wordy in the presence of others, then comes running out to see what all the commotion is about.  When he asks one of his advisers what happened, he explains that the tortoise could not resist from talking and came crashing to the ground because of it. The king has an epiphany and realizes this as a lesson for him to stop doing all of the talking when around others and from then on speaks only when necessary and says only words of wisdom.

Tortoise being carried off by the geese

Original Online Book Source

Reference: Twenty Jataka Tales, retold by Noor Inayat