A Japanese Tale - The Monkey & The Crab

The Monkey & The Crab - By Saru Kani Gassen

One day, a crab, who was walking with a rice ball, was asked by a monkey to exchange it for some persimmon seeds.

The crab refused at first but the monkey convinced him by explaining, ‘If you plant these seeds, they will become big trees and give you lots of persimmons.’

The crab planted the seeds as soon as he got home and sang a song hoping they would grow quickly. The persimmon tree got bigger and bigger and produced a lot of persimmons in short time.

Another day, the monkey came to see him, and he asked the monkey to pick some persimmons for him as he couldn’t climb trees. However, the cunning monkey ate them and didn’t give them to the crab. The crab accused him of eating them, but the monkey just threw some unripe and hard persimmons at the crab! The crab was seriously hurt.

This incident really angered the crab’s children. They invited a chestnut, a millstone and a bee who had also been troubled by the monkey to plot their revenge.

They sneaked into the monkey’s house while he was out and hid in different places. The chestnut hid in the fireplace, the bee hid in a water pail and the millstone hid in the roof.

When the monkey came back and tried to warm up his body by the fireplace, the hot chestnut suddenly attacked him and burned him. He rushed towards the water pail, but then he was stung by the bee! He was so surprised and tried to run out of his house. Nevertheless, the waiting millstone fell on him and crushed him!

They finally took revenge and the monkey vowed that he would never do anything wrong again.