The Timid Hare
Also known as Daddabha Jataka
- 3 minute read
- Ages 5-9
- Jataka Tales
A hare lay dozing under a palm tree in the heat of the afternoon.
She was a nervous animal even by the standards of hares, and half asleep she had begun to worry about what would happen if the earth broke up.
And at that exact moment a heavy ripe fruit fell out of the palm above her and landed on a pile of dry leaves with an enormous crash.
The hare did not look.
She ran.
The stampede
Another hare saw her going and called after her.
"What is it?"
"The earth is breaking up!" she shouted, without slowing down.
So that hare ran too. And the two of them going together started a third, and by the time they reached the far side of the wood there were a hundred hares running, and none of them had asked anything.
The deer saw the hares and joined them. The boar joined the deer. Then the buffalo, the antelope, the wild oxen, the rhinoceros, the tigers and the elephants, until every animal in the forest was running in one direction, and the noise of it went ahead of them across the whole country.
Nobody knew why. Everyone had heard it from the animal in front.
The lion
A lion on a hillside saw the whole forest coming towards a cliff.
He came down and got in front of them and roared three times, and the mass of animals stopped because there was a lion in the way.
"What are you running from?"
"The earth is breaking up."
"Who saw it?"
The elephants said the tigers had told them. The tigers said the buffalo. The buffalo said the deer. It went back down the whole line, animal by animal, until it reached a hundred hares, and the hundred hares pointed at one hare.
"I heard it," she said. "I was under the palm tree and I heard the earth break."
The palm tree
"Show me," said the lion.
She did not want to. He made her get on his back and he carried her, and the whole forest followed behind them, and she showed him the tree she had been lying under.
The lion looked at the ground.
There was a ripe palm fruit lying in a pile of dry leaves, exactly where it had landed.
He picked it up and showed it to her, and then he turned round and showed it to the elephants and the tigers and the buffalo and the deer and the hundred hares.
Then he took them all home.
And if he had not stopped them, every animal in that forest would have gone over the cliff, because of a noise that one frightened animal did not turn round to look at.
Moral of the story
Check the thing yourself before you pass it on. A panic only needs one person who did not look, and everyone after that is trusting them.
Questions and answers
- What noise did the hare hear?
A ripe palm fruit falling from the tree above her onto a pile of dry leaves.
- Why did she think the earth was breaking up?
She had been half asleep worrying about exactly that, so when she heard the crash she assumed it had happened.
- Why did all the other animals run?
Each one heard it from the animal in front and ran without asking any questions or checking anything.
- How did the lion stop them?
He got in front of the stampede and roared three times, which made them stop because a lion was blocking the way.
- How did he find the truth?
He traced the story back down the line, animal by animal, until he reached the one hare who had heard the original noise.
Word meanings
- timid
- Easily frightened, lacking courage.
- stampede
- A sudden rush of frightened animals.
- dozing
- Sleeping lightly.
- cliff
- A high steep rock face.
Questions about The Timid Hare
What is the moral of The Timid Hare?
That you should check a claim before repeating it. Every animal in the forest was in danger because of one who never turned round to look.
Is this the origin of Chicken Little?
It is the oldest known version of that story. The European 'the sky is falling' tale follows the same shape and is likely descended from this one.
What does the lion represent?
Calm investigation. He does not argue with the panic; he traces it back to its source and then shows everybody the evidence.
How does this apply to children today?
It is a very direct way into talking about rumours at school and forwarded messages online, where the person who started it is often the only one who saw anything.