At length he spoke. “Since you insist upon it, I will give you the stork for your king.”
Then all the frogs sang joyfully, “Yes, we will have the stork for our king. The stork is our king! The stork is our king!”
So the stork was sent to rule over them, and as soon as he came among them he began to eat. And he ate and ate—till he had swallowed every frog in the land.
The Adder That Did Not Hear[15]
Away in the midst of the forest, there lived a tiny adder. He was so very little that the great beasts never thought of talking to him. But the spiders and the wasps and the frogs often stopped to visit at his doorway.
One morning, as a frog hopped down the path, he stopped and called “Good morning. I’ve a bit of news for you.”
“Good morning,” replied the adder. “I hope it is good news, I am sure.”
“What’s good news to one person may be bad news to another,” croaked the frog. “But listen! As I came along through the forest I heard a great chattering among the monkeys, and I stopped to hear what it was all about.
“One little monkey sat crying in the midst of them, and the others were all saying, ‘You know you tried to steal—’”