The Tiger, the Monkey and the Rabbit

Khmer Tales · @khmer.tales

A tiger had hunted all day and caught nothing. By a pond it watched a cormorant sit quietly on a branch, then drop onto a fish and swallow it. "That looks easy," thought the tiger. "I'll fish like a cormorant."

At a quiet lake it climbed a tree, crouched on a branch and called "ok-oh, ok-oh" like a cormorant. A fish rose, the tiger leapt, and down it went into the deep water, splashing and choking.

A fisherman sitting in the next tree to watch his lines laughed out loud. The tiger crawled out, deeply ashamed. "Please don't tell anyone," it begged. "Every morning I'll bring you an animal, if you keep quiet." The man agreed.

Every morning the tiger kept its word. But the fisherman's wife wondered where all the meat came from, and asked and asked. One night he forgot his promise and told her the whole story.

The next morning the tiger was waiting. "You told," it growled. "Now I'll eat you." The man begged to say goodbye to his wife first, and the tiger let him go, warning him not to be long.

On the way he met Judge Rabbit and told him everything, crying. "Is that all?" said the rabbit. "Bring me a hand of bananas, and stop worrying about that silly tiger."

The rabbit sat on top of a tall termite mound. When the tiger came looking, he stuffed a banana in his mouth and boomed: "Hmmm! Five tigers eaten and I'm still not full! Hmmm!" The tiger had never heard such a voice. It turned and ran.

A monkey in a tree asked why it was running. "That's only Judge Rabbit," said the monkey. "Let's go back." The tiger was afraid the monkey would climb a tree and leave it alone, so they tied their tails together and crept back.

The rabbit filled his mouth with another banana and shouted: "Monkey! You've owed me for five years, and now you bring me this skinny tiger to pay me back?" The tiger was sure it had been tricked. It bolted through the forest, dragging the monkey behind it over roots and rocks, and never came back.

The fisherman went home safe. A Khmer saying fits him well: a mouth needs a lid, just as a bottle needs a cork. Retold for Akahs Media from Khmer oral tradition.