Week 10 Reading A: Quarrel of the Quails

For this week's first reading, I choose the Jatakas Tales of India as retold by Ellen C. Babbitt.  I read the story titled Quarrel of the Quails.

There is a singular wise quail, who is the leader of the group.  Unfortunately, I think his little herd of birds is a bit slow-minded.  Also, unfortunately, there is a man that lives near their forest.  This man is apparently quite smart because he soon learns the tune that the leader uses to round up all his little amigos.  He’s called the Fowler.

He uses the leader’s tune to round up the quails and catches them to sale them in town.  Eventually, the leader quail cannot tolerate the mass kidnapping of his followers and comes up with a plan.  He tells them to poke their head through the holes of the net and fly away together so he cannot keep them trapped.  The birds get away several times and the Fowler (and his wife) are growing very frustrated with the lack of income.

He says they must simply wait for the quails to quarrel, and they eventually do.  He is able to catch them and sell them in town again.

I wonder what the leader thought about all the trickery and the quarrels…  I think this story was really about the nature of human as wise and the birds as quick to quarrel.  It also told a lesson about the importance of working together as opposed to allowing differences to separate the group into different factions.  I am not sure if the leader quail was with them all the time, or was he like a wise sage figure they went to for advice or he only appeared when they were in dire need?  I think there are many different routes to take if one was to rewrite or make this story their own.

Image from Vecteezy