Once there was a farmer’s wife who was very greedy. She was not content with what she had and always looked around for ways to get more and more things.
One day, a thief came to their house. The farmer’s wife woke up. She took all the valuable things in her husband’s house and ran away with the thief. She thought he would be able to give her all the costly things which her husband could not bring for her.
They reached a riverside and had to go across. The thief said she would have to take off her jewellery and heavy silk clothes and give them to him so that she might swim across easily. He would give her things to her once they were on the other side. She gave him all the valuable things and waited for him to come back and help her across the river.
While she waited , a jackal came by carrying meat in its mouth. It sat down to eat it. But suddenly, its attention fell on a fish that was swimming close to the bank. Leaving the piece of meat on the bank, the jackal ran after the fish. It tried to catch it with its paws, but the fish slipped away in the water and the jackal looked after it feeling disappointed.
The jackal remembered that it had left a piece of meat on the bank and came back to eat it. But when it returned, the piece of meat had vanished! A vulture sitting on a nearby tree had watched the jackal running after the fish and, as soon as it got the opportunity, it swooped down on the meat and took it away to the tree.
The jackal stood around feeling very foolish when he heard someone laughing. It was the farmer’s wife who had been watching the activity of the jackal. The jackal had seen her also earlier, but had been busy getting its food.
“Why are you laughing, lady?” asked the jackal.
“At you, my friend,” she replied, “What a fool you are! You had a perfectly good piece of meat and could have had your dinner comfortably on the riverside. Instead, you ran after that fish. And now look what has happened. You have lost the piece of meat which has been taken away by that vulture on the tree there. And you haven’t caught the fish either!”
“Now we are equal, aren’t we?” mocked the jackal, “I saw what happened to you. You are far more intelligent than I am, and yet you left a good home to follow a thief. He has run off with all your valuables and you are stuck here. What a fool you are!”
