Many, many years ago, in the middle of a forest, there was a lake of clean, cold water. All the animals of the forest came to drink from this lake. But in the middle of the lake lived a monster. The monster caught any animal that went to the water to drink and ate it.
One day, some monkeys came to this lake. They ran and jumped in the trees for a very long time, then they became very thirsty. They wanted to run to the water and drink, but they did not do it.
“We must wait for our King,” said one old monkey, and they sat down and waited. The King of the monkeys was a very large monkey. He always told them what they must do and what they must not do.
“My brothers,” he said, “the fruit on some of the trees in the forest may be bad for us. Do not eat fruit from trees if you have not eaten it before. Do not drink water that you have not drunk before. Bad monsters live in the lake. Ask me if you want to eat or drink anything.”
And the monkeys always asked him when they wanted to eat or drink something. That is why they did not go to the lake. They sat near the lake and waited.
When the King came, he walked around the lake and looked at the water and the shore. He found the tracks of animals that went to the lake, but he did not find any tracks of animals that left the lake. The King went to his friends and said, “You were right to sit and wait for me. A monster lives in this water. It eats the animals that come to drink. Let us wait here.”
The monkeys were very thirsty, but they waited. They knew their King was clever. “He will get some water from the lake,” they thought.
All this time, the monster watched the monkeys from the lake. He was angry. “Why don’t those animals come to the water?” he said to himself. He came out of the water and cried to the monkeys:
“Why don’t you come down to the water and drink? My friends, this is a very beautiful lake, and the water in it is very cold.”
At this, the King of the monkeys said, “You are right, the lake is very beautiful. But you are the monster who eats every animal that comes to drink, aren’t you?”
The monster laughed. He saw that this monkey was very clever.
“You are right, King of the monkeys. I am the monster of the lake. I eat the animals who come to drink in my lake, and I shall eat your monkeys.”
“No,” said the King of the monkeys, “you won’t eat any of my friends.”
“So you say,” the monster answered, “but if you don’t drink, you will die as you sit there. There isn’t another lake in this forest.”
The King of the monkeys thought for a moment, then said, “That’s right. We want to drink, so we must have water, and we shall have water, but we will not let you eat us.”
“How can you drink and not come to the water?” asked the monster.
“Wait and you will see. We shall bring the lake to our mouths, while we sit on the shore,” the King answered.
The King of the monkeys went to a reed that grew on the shore of the lake. He took the reed and put it in his mouth. Then he blew into the reed and made it hollow. He did the same with another reed and another. But then he stopped and thought of the monkeys. They were very thirsty. “They will die before I can make a reed for every monkey,” he said to himself. So he went around the lake and cried:
“Let the reeds on the shore of the lake become hollow!”
And the reeds on the shore of the lake became hollow.
Then the King told each monkey to take a reed in his hands and follow him to the lake. He sat on the shore by the lake. He put one end of the reed in his mouth and the other end in the water. Then he began to suck. The water came up through the reed, and he drank. The monkeys did the same. Each monkey drank for a long time, and the lake monster could not catch any of them.
The monster was very angry. He went back into the lake and waited for some other animals that did not have a clever leader. The King of the monkeys was very clever, wasn’t he?
The hollow reeds that grew on the shore of that lake became the parents of other hollow reeds. Soon hollow reeds grew around lakes in other forests.
