Reading Diary B: Jataka Tales (Babbitt): The Woodpecker and the Lion

I read the second half of the Jataka Tales (Babbitt) and I liked The Woodpecker and the Lion because I can write a good storytelling about it. The story is about a lion that ate something and a piece of the bone stuck in his throat. He groaned in pain and walked around the woods until a woodpecker flew to him asking what was wrong. Once the lion told him about the bone, he asked if he could get it out of his throat. The woodpecker was nervous that the lion would eat him. The lion told him that he wouldn’t eat him but the woodpecker was still cautious. He placed a stick between in his mouth so that the lion couldn’t chomp down on the woodpecker. Once he placed the stick in the lion’s mouth, he pulled pecked the bone, which caused it to fall into the lion’s mouth. Before flying out of the mouth, the woodpecker then pecked the stick and flew away without any thanks from the lion. Days later, the woodpecker needed a favor and asked the lion for help but the lion told the woodpecker that he already did a favor by not eating him.  This shows that some good deeds can go unrewarded. 

A green woodpecker by username: Amada44 (2010)