The Mice and the Elephant

Long ago in India, a herd of elephants found a lake in a forest. The lake glistened in the sunset and it was as clear as a plastic sheet. They were most delighted when they found it. The lake was known as 'The Glistening Lake'. The leader of the elephants said, "Let's drink to our fill!" Every one of them started to drink. But they did not know that the mice lived there ...        The elephants trampled all over the grass and even on some mice too! Their homes were gone. The mice were squashed to death. Some even had elephant faeces stuck on them. Yuck! There were about forty mice at first. But now, half of them were gone.        Then the oldest and wisest mouse said to the others, "We must do something!" It climbed up a mound nearest to an elephant. It whispered, "Mister Elephant, do you know that you are drinking the moon up?" The moon reflected onto the lake brightly. The mouse giggled to himself. "If your herd drinks the moon up, we would have no moon and the whole world would be very dark. The moon is very angry with your herd. Look at the moon moving angrily. So if your herd keeps drinking the moon up, the moon would haunt you in your sleep when it's dead."        Immediately after those words, the elephant moved far away from the lake. The others followed. The mice showered the wise and old mouse with praises. The wise mouse said, "I was lucky to get to talk to the leader of the elephants." It told the others the myth about the moon and they all laughed their heads off. The elephants never came back. They were afraid of the moon coming to haunt them. So from then on, whenever the mice saw elephants, they would taunt them, "Elephants have no brains! Elephants have no brains!" The elephants were too embarrassed to see the mice and they would run away. So now people think that elephants are afraid of mice.

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Written by Lum Yi Shang Pri 4/1, 2003 Zhangde PS