Long ago, there was a very dry season when no rain fell on the land. The elephants, who had always lived happily in the forest, watched their river dry up to almost nothing. With their water supply fading, the elephants appealed to their king for a solution. He decided that they should leave the forest to find a place where they could sate their thirst and bathe in cool waters.
The elephants marched for three days until they finally came upon a clearing at the edge of the forest. There, a peaceful meadow sprawled out before them, and in the meadow was a huge lake. The elephants trumpeted in joy as they bathed, drank and frolicked in the water. At night, exhausted and happy, they lay down to sleep, and their tremendous bodies covered nearly every inch of the huge meadow. The elephants were happy indeed.
Now, all of this was certainly good for the elephants, but it was very bad for the nocturnal rabbits, who could no longer escape from their burrows because of the sleeping elephants covering the ground!
So at daybreak, when the elephants again rose and went to the lake, the clever rabbits gathered together and devised a plan. The rabbit leader met with the king of the elephants upon his return from the lake. He told the elephant king that the moon was the guardian of the rabbits, and was unhappy that the elephants were trespassing on the rabbits’ home. Rabbit took the king to the lake’s edge, and there they saw the moon’s reflection on the lake. Believing the moon herself had descended from the heavens to chastise them, the elephant king humbly ordered his elephants back into the forest.
The rabbit leader then prayed to the moon to aid the gentle elephants, and she answered his prayers by sending cool rains down to fill the forest river. Both the elephants and rabbits lived happily ever after under the graceful watch of the moon!
