Week 2 Story - Tiny Tricksters: Jackal, Monkey, Agouti

I had done a Tiny Tricksters version of the trickster stories in the anthology for the Indian Epics class (stories here), so I thought I would do the same here for Myth-Folklore. The Trickster section of the Anthology had one long story from India; it was not easy to turn it into a 100-word story, but I did it!

The Tiger, The Brahman, and the Jackal

"Help!" yelled Tiger, trapped in a pit.
A passing Brahmin heard him. "I'm scared to help you," he said.
"Don't be scared!" Tiger begged.
The Brahmin helped Tiger out... then Tiger grabbed him.
"Help!" yelled the Brahmin.
Jackal arrived. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"I'm HUNGRY!" roared Tiger.
"But I rescued him from the pit!" protested the Brahmin.
"What pit? Where?" Jackal asked.
"That pit! There!" snarled Tiger.
"You could never fit in there," Jackal replied.
"But I did!!" yelled Tiger.
He jumped into the pit, and then realized his mistake.
"This time," said Jackal to the Brahmin, "leave him there."

Of course, I had to leave out a lot of the story, which has different judges before the jackal arrives, etc. But still, I like how it turned out. The idea of the trickster getting someone to do something to prove a point is one of my favorite trickster tricks, and it works really nicely in this story. In the original, the jackal pretends to be very confused... which takes a lot of words. This strategy took fewer words. :-)

This story is actually famous all over the world, so for my microfiction experiment here, I'll include two other versions of this story from totally different sources: one from the Renaissance Latin fabulist Abstemius which features a monkey as the judge instead of a jackal, and also one from Jamaica, which features the trickster Anansi being tricked (Anansi often gets makes makes foolish mistakes when he gets greedy), with Agouti as judge.

The Man who Rescued a Snake

A snake was stuck under a rock.
"Help me!" he shouted at a man who walked by. "Free me, and I'll give you a treasure!"
"I'll help you," said the man, and he freed the snake, but instead of giving him a treasure, the snake threatened to kill him.
As they were arguing, a monkey came by.
"Be our judge, monkey!" they said.
"You'll have to show me exactly what happened," said the monkey.
So the snake got back under the rock, and then the monkey said, "I advise you to leave that ungrateful beast under the rock this time!"

Anansi, Snake, and the Rock

Snake was trapped under a big rock.
"Save me!" Snake shouted when Anansi walked by.
"No!" said Anansi. "You'll eat me."
"I won't eat you, I promise!" shouted Snake. "I'll give you a reward!"
Anansi rolled away the rock.
"Now I'm going to eat you!" said Snake.
"That's not fair!" said Anansi.
Agouti walked by. "Be our judge, Agouti!" they said.
"Well," said Agouti, "you better show me what happened."
"I was under this rock," said Snake, and then Anansi rolled the rock back on Snake.
"Leave him!" said Agouti. "He'll have to find some other fool who trusts him."

Here's what agoutis look like:

Bibliography.
India. Tiger, Brahmin, and Jackal in Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs.
Abstemius. Simius Iudex, Serpens, et Vir (in Latin).
Jamaica. "Nansi and Snake," in The Magic Pot: Nansi Stories from the Caribbean by Odeen Ishmael.

Image source. Agouti - Wikimedia.