- Summary: Girly-face was a kind and gentle elephant who belonged to a king. One night a group of robbers sat outside her pin and Girly-face heard them saying how they will kill anyone in their way and show no mercy. Girly-face thought this was how he should act, so he followed their words. When his keepers came into his stall, Girly-face killed them. Everyone became too afraid to approach him, and when the king heard about this he wanted to know what was wrong with his elephant. He sent a wise man to figure it out, and the wise man figured Girly-face was acting this way because someone taught him to. The king sent a group of men to sit outside his pin and say good things, like how people should not hurt others. Girly-face followed their talk and become kind again.
Drawing of an Elephant
- Summary: A king liked to hunt deer in the forest but preferred his townspeople to accompany him. They did not like joining because it meant leaving their work, so they built the king a park nearby and fenced Banyan and Monkey deers within. Anytime the king or his cook came in to hunt them, the deer scurried. The kings of each deer herd decided that they would take turns having one of their herd members sacrifice themselves to be killed. One day a mother deer was picked to be the sacrifice, but she did not want to leave her baby without a mother. The Monkey Deer king could not replace her with another herd member, so he asked the Banyan Deer king to help. The Banyan Deer offered to take her place, since he was granted his life from the king. The king respected the Banyan Deer's selflessness, so he decided to stop killing the deers.
All but one of the stories from this section of Jataka Tales were new to me, and I really enjoyed reading them. Once again, I had a fun time trying to puzzle out what the moral or morals of each story could be. The two tales I wrote about both had typical "happy endings" that felt final and left me feeling better because of the messages from the tales, so that is why I wanted to write about them. There were others that had similar happy endings, but these two just stuck with me the most.
Bibliography: Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt, Part B. Links to each tale above.
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