Two Crafty Jackals — Elizabeth Laird

A good story is like a river that starts from far away and travels on and on.

The animal stories in Two Crafty Jackals began their lives in India more than 2,000 years ago and have been travelling ever since. They were already a thousand years old when they were translated into Arabic. They jumped from Arabic into Persian and then continued their journey. They went back to India and then to Afghanistan and Georgia and Turkey. Later they arrived in Europe and were translated into Spanish and Italian and German and French and English and many other languages.

These lovely stories, all wrapped up in one another so that sometimes one begins before the last has ended, tell the tale of Dimnah, a crafty jackal who sets out to get the better of the mighty King of Lions, and Dimnah's brother, Kalilah, who tries to stop him from making too many mistakes.