by Tshering Lhendup

Once upon a time, there lived many animals in a big beautiful forest. The forest had all the necessities in abundant for the animals. One day, a deer and an elephant happen to come together to drink water from a spring. They found the water in the spring was very muddy and dirty. They were not very happy to see the dirty water. The elephant, considering it to be the biggest animal in the forest told the deer I am not at all happy and it trumpet. Then instructed the deer to go up to the spring source to check, if there is anyone dirtying the water. The deer obeyed and walked towards the source. At some distance from the water source, the deer saw the porcupine digging a hole beside the water source.

The deer told the porcupine that the elephant was very angry seeing the dirty water. And you are asked to come down to meet the elephant. The porcupine resisted the order of the elephant and told the deer to just take one spine of mine and show it to the elephant. The deer reached back to the elephant and said there is a porcupine at the water source digging a hole. But the porcupine refused to come to meet you. The porcupine plucked one of its spines and gave it to me to show to you. The deer showed the spine to the deer. Wow! What a big spine. How big would be the body of the porcupine, if the spine is that big?

The elephant ran away feared of the spine without giving a second thought. The deer laughed and laughed seeing the elephant running away until its forehead filled with wrinkles. From then onwards the foreheads of deer became wrinkled.

The moral of the story is “We must not judge the book by its cover”.

About the Author:

Tshering Lhendup is working as a Principal in Bjimthangkha Primary School under Wangduephodrang in Western Bhutan. He likes reading, telling and writing moral based stories.