The Thirsty Crow

It was the hottest day of the whole summer.

The sun blazed down on the village. The roads were dusty, the fields were dry, and the ponds had shrunk to cracked brown mud. Even the dogs lay flat in the shade with their tongues hanging out.

High above, a black crow was flying slowly over the rooftops. She had been flying since morning, and she was very, very thirsty.

"Caw," she croaked. But her voice came out dry and scratchy, like an old leaf.

Looking for water

The crow flew to the river. But the river had shrunk to a thin trickle between hot stones, and she could not find a single drop to drink.

She flew to the well. But the well was covered with a heavy wooden lid.

She flew to the village tank where the cows drank. It was empty.

Her wings were aching now. Her eyes were heavy. "If I don't find water soon," she thought, "I won't be able to fly any further."

And then, in a quiet garden at the edge of the village, she saw something.

The pitcher

Under a mango tree stood a tall clay pitcher. Someone had left it there in the shade.

The crow swooped down and landed on its rim. She peered inside.

There was water! Cool, clear water.

But there was only a little of it, right down at the very bottom.

The crow pushed her head into the neck of the pitcher. She stretched her neck as far as it would go. The tip of her beak hung just above the water. She stretched a tiny bit more. Not quite. She could almost feel how cool it would be, but she could not reach it.

"Caw," she said crossly.

She hopped down and tried to push the pitcher over. If it tipped, the water would spill out and she could drink from the ground. She pushed with her head. She pushed with her shoulder. She pushed with all her might.

But the pitcher was heavy clay, and it did not move at all.

The crow sat down beside it, panting. Her beak was dry. Her feathers drooped.

Many birds would have given up and flown away. But this crow did something different.

She stopped. And she thought.

A little at a time

She looked at the pitcher. She looked at the water. She looked at the ground all around her.

The ground was covered with little pebbles: grey ones, brown ones, white ones, smooth and round.

The crow tilted her head. An idea was beginning to grow.

She picked up one pebble in her beak, flew up to the rim of the pitcher, and dropped it in.

Plop.

She looked inside. Had anything happened? Perhaps the water had come up, just the tiniest bit.

She picked up another pebble. Plop.

And another. Plop.

And another. Plop. Plop. Plop.

It was slow work. Her wings were tired, and the sun was hot, and each pebble only made the smallest difference. But every time she looked in, the water was a little higher than before.

Ten pebbles. Twenty pebbles. Thirty pebbles.

The water crept up past the round belly of the pitcher. It climbed up into the narrow neck. It rose higher and higher, until it was sparkling just below the rim.

The crow dipped her beak into it, and drank.

The coolest drink

Oh, how good it was!

She drank and drank, long cool sips, until she was not thirsty any more. Then she shook out her feathers, ruffled her wings and gave a loud, happy "CAW!" that rang across the whole garden.

A sparrow peeped down from the mango tree. "How did you do that?" it asked. "I saw that pitcher this morning, and I couldn't reach the water at all."

The crow hopped onto a branch beside it.

"I couldn't either, at first," she said. "And pushing didn't help. So I stopped, and I thought, and I tried one small thing. And then I kept on trying it."

The sparrow looked at the pile of pebbles inside the pitcher and chirped in wonder.

Then the crow flew off over the rooftops, strong and cool and happy, into the long hot afternoon.

About this story

This little fable is credited to Aesop, the storyteller of ancient Greece, and it has travelled all over the world. In India it is one of the best-loved first stories, told in homes and schools in many languages. In recent years, scientists have tested real crows and their relatives, the rooks, with a tube of water and some pebbles, and some of the birds solved the puzzle just as the crow does here. This version is a shortened, simplified retelling.