Reading Notes: Jataka Tales, The Foolish Timid Rabbit

For this week, I will be reading the Jataka children tales! They are so fun to read. For today, in particular, I focused on the story The Foolish Timid Rabbit by Ellen C. Babbitt. The story begins with a rabbit sleeping underneath a palm tree. As he awakens, an idea comes into his head. He thinks, what would happen to me if the world began to break up? Already on edge about this idea, a monkey drops a coconut right next to the rabbit. This sends the rabbit into a fit of panic and he begins to run. As he is running, a nearby rabbit wonders what on earth is going on? Therefore, the second rabbit chases the first and asks why he is running. The timid rabbit begins to tell him that the earth is breaking up. So, the second rabbit continues to run. Many more rabbits begin to join and are told that the earth is breaking up. A deer, fox, and elephant are soon also recruited and are told that the earth is breaking up. Finally, the king of beast, the lion sees all the animals running and makes his way in front of them. He roars three times and commands them to a halt. He then begins to ask each of them why they are running. The animals eventually say the timid rabbit told them the earth was breaking up. The lion then asks the rabbit to take him to where the earth was breaking and carries the timid rabbit back to where he was originally sleeping. As they arrive, they see that the earth was not breaking up and that a coconut had just fallen. Good thing the lion resolved the situation, or else all the animals would have just kept running. This is the end of the story.

The Timid Rabbit: Public Domain Pictures