The Braying Tiger

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In a village on the edge of the forest lived a poor washerman and his weary donkey, whose back was laden by heavy loads by day and stood hollow-ribbed by night. His master, unable to spare enough fodder, despaired of keeping him alive.

One evening, the forest revealed a strange fortune: a tiger, dead upon the earth, its stripes still burning with menace. The washerman, eyes glinting with cunning, thought to himself, “This skin shall feed us both.”

That night, the donkey wore the stripes of the jungle’s lord. Released into the neighbor’s fields, he grazed beneath the moonlight, each mouthful stolen under the cloak of fear. The farmers, spying the dark shape among their crops, froze—none dared challenge the prowling “tiger.”

So the trick ripened into habit. Night after night, the donkey feasted, and by day he dreamed of sweet grasses. His master’s purse grew heavier, his beast rounder. In their small world, deception blossomed like a secret garden.

But fate is a patient hunter. One moonlit night, as the donkey chewed in contentment, a sound drifted across the still air—the call of a female donkey, plaintive and familiar. Forgetting the stripes upon his back, he answered with a jubilant bray that shattered the night’s silence.

In that instant, terror melted into laughter. The farmers, emboldened, rushed forward. No tiger’s roar, only a donkey’s foolish cry. They beat the creature till his borrowed stripes lay sullied in the dust.

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Moral: Even in another’s skin, the heart speaks its own truth.

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