Week 2 Story: The Jealous Crocodile

A monkey and a crocodile. Source: Flickr

Once upon a time there was a great and powerful monkey lord who lived on a river bank at the base of the Himalayas.  He was so great and powerful that everyone in the land that had seen or heard of him admired his strength and stature.  There was one admirer in particular that began to grow bitter of the praise and admiration the monkey constantly received from others.  This bitter creature was a great crocodile who lived in the river that the monkey lived on the bank of.  This crocodile wanted to eat the heart of the Monkey in front of all to prove to the world how much greater he was than the monkey.  The crocodile began to hatch a plan to trick the monkey into the river where he could easily overpower him and take his heart.  He began to observe the monkey's daily habits, trying to find a perfect time to lure him into the river.  He saw that the monkey would come to the banks of the river every morning to harvest figs from a tree that was on the river bank.  This is where the crocodile decided to lay his trap.  One day, when the money was harvesting figs from his tree the crocodile approached him from the river.  

The crocodile approached the monkey and asked, "why do you eat these figs from this tree when there are much tastier foods on the opposite bank with mango and labuja trees with tastier fruit than you can imagine!"  

The monkey, intrigued by the crocodiles description, responds with "I do see the fruit trees on the opposite bank but I have no way to cross the river to get to them.  If I tried to swim, I would surely drown." 

"I will carry you across" responds the crocodile, "If you can't swim well enough, you can stand on my back as I swim to the other side."

The monkey, pondering this proposal for a few minutes, decided to go along with the crocodile's plan.  He stepped onto the back of the crocodile and the crocodile began swimming across the river to the other side.  When they had reached the middle of the river, the crocodile told the monkey his devious plan.

Horrified, the monkey begins to think of any way to save his life and quickly exclaims, "You cannot eat my heart for I have left it on the river bank,  you think I would keep something so important with me all the time where I could lose it?"

This statement confused the crocodile because he assumed the monkey's heart was inside him like his own, but he also did not know the differences between a monkey and a crocodile.  In his confusion he made a hasty decision to bring the monkey back to the bank to find his heart.  He would keep the monkey in the water so he could not leave and try and figure out where the monkey had left his heart.  As he neared the bank, the monkey suddenly jumped off of the crocodiles back with tremendous force; enough to get him all the way to the bank.  This surprised and confused the crocodile because he was not aware the monkey had such strength.  

The monkey exclaimed, "you see stupid crocodile, you will never have my heart if you don't even know where to find it.  I have beaten you and you now will die."

The crocodile, stunned by the monkey's statement just laid in the river where he was too shocked to move.  The monkey then grabbed a branch from the fig tree and splintered it off into a makeshift spear in an instant.  He then thrust the spear with great force at the crocodile and pierced his heart.  The crocodile thrashed and panicked for a few moments, but it was too late, and he soon perished.  The crocodile wanted so badly to have the monkey's heart to prove his worth, but in the end, he lost his own.

Author's Note: The original story is about a crocodile who wants to please his wife by stealing the heart of a great monkey who lived on the river bank for her to eat.  The monkey bests the crocodile by tricking him into bringing him to safety by saying he left his heart in the fig tree.  I changed the story to remove the wife and make it more about the crocodiles jealousy instead of pleasing his wife.  The monkey tricks the crocodile in a similar way, but kills the crocodile in the end, instead of letting him go.  I think this makes it more interesting because the crocodile faces real consequences for his actions, instead of just a disappointed wife.

Bibliography: "The Monkey and The Crocodile" from Eastern Stories and Legends by Marie L. Shedlock.