two crafty jackals

A good story is like a river. It starts from far away and travels on and on, passing through one country after another, bringing life and pleasure along its way.

The stories in Two Crafty Jackals began their lives in India more than two thousand years ago, and they have been travelling ever since. They passed through many ancient languages, and more already more than a thousand years old when they were translated into Arabic. They jumped from Arabic into Persian, and they just went on travelling, into Afghanistan, Georgia and Turkey, and eventually into all the European languages.

These lovely stories, all wrapped in one another so that one begins beofer the last one has ended, tell the tale of Dimnah, a crafty little 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.

The 500 year old pictures in this book come from a exquisite manuscript, which is now in the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, Canada.