One hot summer, a small pond began to dry up, and the fish who lived in it grew worried. A crane standing on the bank watched them with hungry eyes and thought of a trick. "Dear fish," he called sweetly, "I pity you. Your pond is drying, but I know a great lake nearby, deep and cool, covered with lotus flowers. Let me carry you there, one by one, in my beak."
The fish were doubtful. "Since the world began, no crane has ever helped a fish," said one. So the crane offered a test: "Send one of you to see the lake, and I will bring him back safely." They sent a brave old fish; the crane truly showed him the beautiful lake and brought him home to tell the tale. Now the fish trusted the crane completely, and one by one they begged to be carried first.
But the wicked crane never took a single fish to the lake. Each time, he flew instead to a varana tree on the shore and made a meal of his passenger, dropping the bones at its root. Trip after trip, the pile of bones grew — until at last no fish were left in the pond. Only a crab remained. "Little crab," said the crane, still hungry, "shall I carry you to the lovely lake too?" The crab thought, "He can hold a fish in his beak, but I have my own way of holding." Aloud he said, "You could never lift me in your beak, friend. Let me grip your neck with my claws, and carry me so."
The crane agreed. But as they flew, the crab saw the shining lake pass beneath them — and then the varana tree with its heap of fish bones. "So this is your lake!" said the crab, tightening his claws like a blacksmith's tongs. "Take me to the water, or we both fall together." The trembling crane flew down and lowered the crab gently into the lake. But the crab knew the crane would only trick others again — and with one great snap of his scissor-claws, the wicked crane's story came to an end, right there on the mud. The spirit who lived in the varana tree had seen it all and said, "Trickery never wins for long: the cheater meets a cheat sharper than himself."
When the Buddha finished this tale, he said, "In that life, I myself was the spirit of that tree, who saw all that passed."