The Sparrow and the elephant, Stories from Panchatantra for your children, bed time stories, moral tales

Long time ago there lived a sparrow with her husband on a tree. She had built a nice nest and laid her eggs in the nest. One morning, a wild elephant with spring fever feeling came to the tree in search of shade and in a rage broke the branch of the tree on which the nest was residing. Unluckily all the sparrow eggs were lost though both parents were saved. The she-sparrow was deep in sorrow.

Seeing her sorrow, the woodpecker bird, a friend of hers offered her consolation that she would think of a way of killing the elephant. Then she went to her friend the black fly, who in turn went to the counselor frog for advice. The frog then devised a scheme for killing the elephant. He asked the black fly to buzz in the ears of the elephant, so that the elephant would be thrilled to listen to the music of the black fly and close its eyes. Then she asked the woodpecker to pluck his eyes. She herself would be on the edge of a pit and would croak misleading the elephant to think that it is a pond.

The next day at noon the three carried out the plan and the elephant was killed when he fell flat into a pit after being blinded by the woodpecker when he closed his eyes in response to the black fly. So the revenge was taken with collective wit of all three animals.

Story moral: Intelligence wins over might.

Read more Panchatantra stories

• The brahmin's gift
• The Foolish lion and the clever rabbit
• The fox reared by the lion
• The Monkey and the crocodile
• The moon lake
• The Elephant and the sparrow
• The sage's daughter
• The Blue jackal
• The mongoose and the farmer's wife
• The greedy jackal
• The day dreaming priest
• The heron and the crab
• The crows and the serpent
• The gold giving serpent
• The swan and the owl
• The cat partridge and the hare
• The geese and the tortoise
• The mice and the elephants
• The bird with two necks
• The three fishes