Once upon a time, a hunter happened to pass by a jungle. He found a serpent among the stones there.
“Please set me free,” pleaded the serpent. “Oh, no!” replied the hunter, “I’ll do no such thing, for you are sure to eat me. You snakes are cheats.”
“I promise you I won’t,” assured the serpent and it continued to plead with the hunter. The kind hunter finally freed the serpent. But immediately, true to its nature, it wrapped itself around the hunter, ready to eat him.
“But you promised!” said the hunter desperately. All his pleas were wasted on the serpent, who said, “If you make promises when you are hungry, they don’t mean anything.”
The man suggested, “We must first find out if you have a right to eat me or not. Let us follow the custom of this country and ask thrice. Then, if it is said that you have a right to eat me, you may do so.”
The serpent agreed to this and they went on together. They first met an old greyhound and asked him.
“My master used me to hunt, but he never fed me well. Now I’m old; he wants me to be killed. If you do good, people do evil in return. So, you have a right to kill this man,” said the hound.
Next, they ran into an old horse and explained the problem. He replied, “My master rode on me till I grew old and feeble. Now he does not even feed me. What ingratitude! So, you have a right to kill this man.”
The hunter was worried as twice the judgement was in favour of the serpent. Then they met a fox. The man narrated the whole story to him.
“I need to understand this clearly,” said the fox, “Can we go to the place where this happened?”
So, the hunter took the serpent and the fox back to the same place. “Now please show me where exactly the serpent was, when you found him,” said the fox.
The serpent slid under the stone that the man replaced over it so that he might be stuck under it as before.
“Has he put you exactly as you were?”
“Yes,” replied the serpent, “I can’t move.”
“In that case, you just stay there!” said the wily fox. The hunter thanked him and went off relieved and happy.
