The Jackal Foiled

North Africa

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The jackal met a lamb and said to him, "What are you doing here?" The lamb replied, "Uncle, I know that you want to eat me. Please give me a year in which to grow up. I shall be big and fat then, and more to your taste. I promise to be here a year from now to the very day." The jackal thought it was a good idea to let his food grow fat first, and have a reserve for the following year, so he let the lamb go.

After a year, the jackal found the lamb grazing on the farm, and called him, “You there! Did you not promise to come and be eaten by me?"

"Did I? I do not remember promising anything like that. Anyway, I have grown horns now."

The jackal saw to his dismay that the lamb had become a young ram and so it would not be easy to wrestle him down and devour him. Jackals are not big and strong so they have to rely on their wits and speed.

So he said, "We will go before the judge and you will swear that you did not promise to be eaten by me."

"Very well, I will be ready to go tomorrow." The jackal went away, and the lamb went to the greyhound who belonged to the farm, and told him what the jackal had said. The greyhound had a good

plan, "Tomorrow I will come to your hut. You must find a basket large enough to hold me and also a sheet. I will sit inside the basket and you will wrap the cloth around it so that I am well hidden, but leave an opening for my snout and front paws." The lamb searched and found a dome-shaped basket.

The next morning the greyhound arrived and crept inside the basket, only his head was outside it. The lamb wrapped the white sheet around him, leaving only a small opening in front of the hound's face, so that the hound looked like the tomb of a Muslim saint. Soon, the jackal arrived and asked where the lamb wanted to perform his oath ceremony. "Right here," said the lamb, "here is my shrine."

The lamb swore first, then invited the jackal to take his oath on the pretended saint's tomb. The jackal placed his hand on the "grave", and swore that the lamb had offered himself to be eaten by him. At that moment, the greyhound's snout appeared, snapped at the jackal's front paw and bit it off. The jackal escaped with three feet.

"There goes my foot with my food!" the jackal lamented, as he limped away from the scene of his defeat. "I should have eaten that lamb a year ago when I first met it. Now it has grown in wisdom as well as in size. I expected to get more meat later on. I thought it would be just as easy to kill a large lamb as it is a little one."

Never postpone the pleasure that you can get now. Do not let go what you already have. Do not believe even an innocent looking lamb.

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