The four friends

Reading time aloud: about four minutes.

The Panchatantra's longest-running story, and the one it clearly likes best — a whole book is named after it.

By a lake in the forest lived four friends. Laghupatanaka the crow, who saw everything from the air. Hiranyaka the mouse, whose teeth could cut anything. Mantharaka the tortoise, slow and sensible. And Chitranga the deer, fastest of them all.

They met every evening at the water and talked, and no one could see what they had in common, which is usually the sign of a good friendship.

One evening the deer did not come.

The crow went up and found him — caught in a hunter's net at the far end of the lake, thrashing and making it worse.

The crow came back. "Bring the mouse," he said. So he carried the mouse across, and the mouse began to cut the ropes.

And the tortoise, who had been told very clearly to stay where he was, came anyway — because his friend was in a net and sitting still felt wrong.

The mouse cut the last rope and the deer sprang free. The crow lifted off. The mouse ran into a hole.

And the hunter arrived, and found no deer, no crow, no mouse — and one tortoise, in the open, moving at the speed of a tortoise.

He tied him to his bow and set off home.

So the three of them made a plan, and it was a good one. The deer went ahead and lay down beside the path as though dead, and the crow sat on him and pecked. The hunter, who could not believe his luck, put the tortoise down to go and collect the deer.

The mouse cut the tortoise free. The tortoise went into the water. The deer stood up and ran. The crow flew off.

And the hunter walked home with an empty bow and a story nobody believed.

Last updated: 2026-08-11