There stood a big banyan tree on the outskirts of a small town. Thousands of crows lived on that tree. Not far from the banyan tree, there was a mountain cave. Thousands of owls lived in it.
The king of the owls accompanied by its soldiers used to hunt crows during the night. Soon thousands of crows were killed and eaten up by the owls. One of the main reasons for the killing of the crows at such a large scale was, that they were unable to see clearly during the night. And the owls, being nocturnal, could easily locate the crows sitting in the tree during night hours. And the unfortunate crows were defenceless; they couldn’t fly away for the safety of their lives.
This kind of situation went on to such an extent that the loss of lives of thousands of crows became unbearable for the king of crows. One day he was compelled to call a meeting to discuss ways and means to deal with the situation and bring an end to the killing of crows.
After heated discussions and exchange of views and ideas, a plan was chalked out in the meeting, according to which a drama was to be enacted at a little distance from the owls’ cave.
So, on the next day, the drama was staged and while enacting the drama, an old crow was ‘thrashed’ and ‘beaten mercilessly’ by the king of crows and his soldiers. The seemingly half dead old crow, with a goat’s blood sprinkled all over its body was later picked up by the soldiers of the king Owl. This was done on the advice of a senior minister in king Owl’s cabinet. This minister had told the king Owl, “Your Majesty, this
badly wounded crow had spoken in favour of us in its king’s cabinet meeting, saying that ours was a more intelligent and superior race, better managed and strong, hence we deserved the right to be known and recognized as the king of birds. This led to the murderous attack on the poor fellow.”
“We should help it recuperate from its wounds and injuries,” said the king of owls. “After this, we’ll utilise this old knowledgeable crow’s talent in destroying their kingdom.”
The old crow soon found a favourable place in the owl kingdom. Many of the owl ministers were in its favour, except, one or two, who opposed the crow, saying that it was, after all, from the enemy camp. But the crow continued to live in the owls’ cave.
At last, it was the day time when the owls themselves were not able to see anything, due to sunlight, when the seemingly wounded and infirm crow piled up thousands of wooden twigs at the mouth of the owls’ cave and set fire to it. The roaring flames leapt up high and all the owls of the owl kingdom, inside the cave, were burnt to ashes.
Moral—Never trust your enemy. Don’t allow him into your home.
