This story is takes inspiration from the Buddhist Jataka collection and in the ancient book of stories known as The Panchatantra. Here is a link to learn more about the Panchatantra tradition. The source material of this story comes fromThe Giant Crab, and Other Tales from Old India by W. H. D. Rouse. I decided to change the characters to various Pokemon that look similar. I played a ton of Pokemon growing up and I thought it would be a neat twist to a fun story.
THE SLY SWANNA AND THE KRABBY
Magikarp: Image Source Link
Once upon a time a number of magikarp lived in a little pool. It was all very well while there was rain, but when summer came, and it began to be very hot, the water dried up and got lower and lower.
Now not far away there was a beautiful lake, always fresh and cool, for it lay under the shadow of great trees, and it was covered all over with waterlilies. And a swanna lived on this lake.
The swanna used to eat magikarp, when she could catch any, and one day, coming to the little pool, he saw all the fish gasping in it and thought of a neat trick.
“Dear magikarp,” said the swanna, “I am so sorry to see you cooped up in this hole. I know a beautiful lake close by, deep and fresh and cool, and if you like I will carry you there.”
The magikarp did not know what to make of this, because never since the world began had a swanna done a good turn to a magikarp. It was absurd to suppose that a swanna would help magikarp, as to think that a meowth would be kind to a ratatta.
So they said to the swanna, “We don’t believe you; what you want is to eat us.”
This was what the Swanna wanted, but she did not say so. “No!” said she; “I’m not so cruel! I have eaten a magikarp now and then” — she saw it was of no use denying that, because they knew she had — “but I have plenty of other food, and it hurts me to see you here. In this hot water you will all be boiled fish before long!”
“That’s true enough,” said the magikarp; “the water is hot.”
They persuaded an old magikarp with one eye to go and see. The swanna took the one-eyed magikarp in her beak and put him in the lake, and when the magikarp had seen that what the swanna said was true, the swanna carried the magikarp back to tell the others.
Swanna: Image Source Link
The old magikarp praised the lake. “It’s ever so big,” he said, “and deep and cool, just as the swanna said, and there are trees overshadowing it, and waterlilies are growing in the mud.” And he rolled up his one eye at the thought of it.
Then all the magikarp were eager to go. Every magikarp was anxious to remain no longer in the pool. They all begged the swanna to take them to this beautiful lake.
“One at a time!” said the swanna. “I have only one beak!” And she smiled to herself, for that beak was made to eat magikarp, not to carry them.
However, it was decided that as the one-eyed magikarp had trusted himself in the swanna's beak before he knew what the truth was, he certainly deserved to go first.
So the swanna took the one-eyed magikarp in his beak, and carried him over to the lake. But this time he did not drop the magikarp in; he laid him in the cleft of a tree, and pecked his one eye out with his beak; then he killed him, and ate him up, and dropped his bones at the foot of the tree.
Swanna came back for another. “Now then, who’s next?” asked the swanna. “Old One-eye is swimming happy as a king!” He picked up another magikarp, and served him like the first.
This continued for a few days until the pool was empty. The sly swanna had eaten every single one of the magikarp! She stood on the bank, peering into every hole, to see if there were any fish left. There was one, surely! No, it was a krabby. Never mind, she thought; all’s fish that comes to my net!
Krabby: Image Source Link
So he invited the kraby to come with him to the lake.
“How are you going to carry me?” asked the krabby.
“In my beak!” replied the swanna.
“You might drop me,” said the krabby.
“I promise I won’t drop you!” said the swanna.
The krabby had more sense than all the magikarp put together, and he did not believe in the swanna’s friendship at all. So he pretended to hesitate, and he said, "I’ll tell you what. I can hold on tighter with my claws than you can with your beak. I’ll come, but you must let me hold on to your neck with my claws. Then I shall feel safe.”
The swanna was so hungry that, without stopping to think, he agreed, and then the krabby got tight hold of his neck with his claws, and the swanna carried him towards the lake.
But after a while the krabby saw that he was being carried somewhere else, indeed to that tree where the swanna used to eat the magikarp.
“Swanna,” said he, “aren’t you going to put me in the lake?”
“Swanna, indeed!” said the Swanna; “Was I born to carry krabbys? No! Just look at that heap of bones under the tree! Those are the bones of the magikarp that used to live in your pool. I ate them, and I’m going to eat you!”
“Are you, though!” said the krabby, and gave the swanna’s neck a little nip.
Then the swanna saw what a fool he had been to let a krabby put a claw round his neck. He knew that the krabby could kill him.
“Dear krabby!” said she, with tears streaming from her eyes; “forgive me! I won’t kill you, only let me go!”
“Just put me in the lake, then,” said the krabby.
The swanna stepped down to the lakeside and laid the krabby down. And the krabby, as soon as he felt safe, nipped off the swanna’s head as if it had been cut with a knife
The sly swanna was killed and caught by his own trick. And the krabby lived happily in the beautiful lake for the rest of his life.
