Fables and Folk Tales

Why This Matters

Have you ever wished for a magic shortcut? A way to get something good without any hard work?

Maybe you wished your homework would just finish itself. Maybe you wished you could become good at cricket without practice. It is a very normal wish. We all have it sometimes.

This unit has a story and a poem about exactly this. They are old tales, told again and again for many years. People keep telling them because they carry a small, useful truth inside.

The story shows a man who wanted gold without working for it. The poem shows a bird that was tricked by sweet words. Both teach you something you can use in real life, not just in the exam. By the end of this page, you will see what each tale is really saying — and why.

The Big Idea

These two tales are fables. A fable is a short story that teaches a lesson. The story “A Bottle of Dew” teaches that real success comes from hard work, not from magic. The poem “The Raven and the Fox” teaches that we should not let sweet, flattering words make us foolish. Both are simple stories with a big, useful message hidden inside.

📖 Where to read the original: For copyright reasons, the full original story and poem are not reproduced here — read them in your NCERT Poorvi (Grade 6) textbook. This page gives you a clear summary and explanation to study alongside it.

The Story — “A Bottle of Dew”

This story was written by Sudha Murty. She is a famous Indian writer who tells simple stories with deep lessons.

Before we look at the small parts, here is the whole story as one picture. Figure 1.1 shows the five steps of the story from start to end.

Tap to zoom

What happens (simple summary)

Rama Natha was the son of a rich landlord. When his father died, he left Rama Natha a lot of land.

But Rama Natha was lazy. He never looked after his land. Not even for one day. Instead, he had a strange dream. He believed there was a magic potion. A “potion” is a special liquid. He thought one drop of this potion could turn any object into gold.

So he spent all his time looking for this potion. Many people cheated him. They promised to tell him the secret, but they were lying. Rama Natha kept losing money. His wife, Madhumati, was worried. She felt sure they would soon be poor.

One day a wise man came to their town. A wise man like this is called a sage. His name was Mahipati. Rama Natha asked him about the magic potion.

To Rama Natha’s surprise, the sage said yes. He said he knew the secret. But there was a special way to make the potion.

The sage told him: plant banana plants. Water them every day with your own hands. In winter, small drops of water form on the leaves in the morning. These drops are called dew. Collect this dew and store it in a bottle. When you have five litres of dew, bring it to me. I will say some magic words and turn it into the potion.

Rama Natha worried. Winter is short. Collecting five litres of dew would take years!

The sage said he could plant as many banana plants as he wanted. But he must do all the work himself.

So Rama Natha went home. He cleaned his empty fields. He planted rows and rows of banana plants. He looked after them with great care. Every winter morning, he collected the dew by hand. His wife helped him too. She took the bananas to the market and sold them for a good price.

This went on for six years. Slowly, his small farm became a huge banana plantation. At last, he had his five litres of dew.

He took the bottle to the sage. The sage said some words over it and gave it back. He told Rama Natha to try it. Rama Natha sprinkled a few drops on a copper vessel. He waited for it to turn into gold.

Nothing happened.

Rama Natha was angry. He said the sage had cheated him. He said he had wasted six years.

But the sage smiled. He called Madhumati. She came with a big box. When she opened it, it was full of gold coins!

Then the sage explained the truth. There was no magic potion. While Rama Natha looked after his trees, his wife sold the fruit in the market. That is how they made all this money. It was hard work that made them rich, not magic. The sage said he had played a trick on purpose. If he had simply told Rama Natha to work hard, Rama Natha would not have listened.

Rama Natha understood. From that day on, he worked even harder on his plantation.

The characters

A story is told through its characters. A character is any person (or animal) in the story. Let’s meet the three people in this tale.

• Rama Natha — the main character. He starts as a lazy man who only dreams of magic gold. He wants riches without any work. By the end, he changes into a hard worker who is proud of his land.
• Mahipati, the sage — a wise old man. He is clever and kind. He wants to help Rama Natha, but in a special way. Instead of just telling him to work hard, he gives him a trick task that makes him work hard without knowing it.
• Madhumati — Rama Natha’s wife. She is patient and sensible. At first she is worried about their money. Later she quietly helps her husband by selling the bananas. She is a big reason they become rich.

The clever trick & WHY it worked

Now here is the most important question. Why did the sage’s trick work so well? Let’s slow down and think about it. This is the clever heart of the whole story.

The sage knew one thing about people. If you tell a lazy person “go and work hard”, they will not listen. They do not want to. So telling Rama Natha the plain truth would have failed.

So the sage was clever. He did not talk about hard work at all. Instead, he gave Rama Natha a goal he wanted — the magic potion. To get that goal, Rama Natha had to do four things himself:

1. Plant banana plants.
2. Water them every day by hand.
3. Look after them for years.
4. Collect dew with his own hands.

Do you see what is happening? Every one of these tasks is hard work on the land! Rama Natha thought he was making magic. But really, he was farming. He was building a plantation, day by day, year by year.

The dew was just a trick to keep him busy and patient. The real “magic” was the work itself. The banana trees grew. The fruit sold. The money came in. Rama Natha got rich — and he did not even notice how.

Here is the deep point. The sage made Rama Natha do the right thing before he could understand it. Sometimes people only believe a lesson after they have lived it. Rama Natha had to become a hard worker first. Only then could he understand that hard work, not magic, makes wealth.

Let’s check this idea with a quick question.

To make the change in Rama Natha very clear, look at Figure 1.2. It shows him before and after the sage’s trick, side by side.

Tap to zoom

We can also put the two Rama Nathas in a table to compare them at a glance.

What we look at	Before meeting the sage	After meeting the sage
His attitude to work	Lazy — never touched his land	Hard-working — farmed every day
What he believed in	A magic potion that makes gold	Honest hard work makes wealth
His money	Wasting it, heading to be poor	Truly rich from the plantation
His land	Empty and unused for years	A huge, busy banana plantation

The lesson — what a fable teaches and the message here

Every fable carries a lesson. The lesson is the real point of the story — the thing it wants you to remember and use in life.

The lesson of “A Bottle of Dew” is simple: there is no magic shortcut to success. Real wealth comes from hard, honest work.

Think about it in your own life. You cannot become good at maths by wishing. You become good by practising every day. You cannot win a race by magic. You win by training. The banana trees did not grow because of a potion. They grew because Rama Natha watered them, again and again, for six years.

Figure 1.3 below shows the lesson as a web. The big message sits in the middle, and four smaller ideas branch out from it.

Tap to zoom

The Poem — “The Raven and the Fox”

The unit’s poem is “The Raven and the Fox”. It was first written long ago by a French writer named Jean de La Fontaine. It is also a fable — a short tale with a lesson — but told in verse, with rhyme.

In this poem there are two characters. A raven (a big black bird) and a fox. Let’s go through what happens, idea by idea.

What the poem means, idea by idea

Before reading the explanation, look at Figure 1.4. It tells the whole poem in four small pictures, so the events stay clear in your mind.

Tap to zoom

Here is the poem’s story, stanza by stanza, in plain words:

The first idea. A raven is sitting on a branch. In its beak it holds a small piece of food. A fox on the ground sees the food. The fox really wants it.

The second idea. The fox is clever. It does not try to grab the food by force. Instead, it praises the raven with sweet words. It says, “You are such a handsome bird! Look at your beautiful feathers! If only you would sing, all the birds would call you their King.” This kind of false, sweet praise is called flattery. The fox does not mean it. It is only trying to fool the raven.

The third idea. The raven is foolish and proud. It believes the flattery. It forgets one important thing — its voice is not sweet at all. A raven only makes a rough sound called a “croak”. But the proud raven wants to show off its “singing”. So it opens its beak wide to sing. The moment it opens its beak, the food drops out and falls to the ground.

The fourth idea. The fox quickly grabs the food. Then it laughs. It tells the raven a lesson: do not believe sweet words that make you feel proud. Too much pride is foolish. The poor raven has lost its food and learnt a hard lesson.

Its message and feeling

The message of the poem is clear: do not let flattery fool you. When someone praises you too much, stop and think. Are they being honest? Or do they want something from you?

The feeling of the poem is light and a little funny. We almost want to laugh at the silly raven. But there is a warning hidden inside the fun. Pride made the raven careless, and it lost what it had. The clever fox won, but only by tricking someone weaker. The poem makes us smile and think at the same time. That is the special power of a good fable.

What is a fable / folk tale?

Both tales in this unit are fables. Let’s make this idea fully clear, because you will meet many fables in school.

Common Mistakes

When students read these tales quickly, they sometimes get the wrong idea. Here are the most common slips. Read them so you do not make the same ones.

Quick Check

Let’s see how well you understood both tales. Try each question, then read the explanation.

Practice

Now try these on your own. Think first, write your answer, then tap to check.

Easy

Medium

Challenge

Summary

Here are the key points from this unit. If you can explain each one in your own words, you have understood the chapter.

• Both tales in this unit are fables — short stories that teach a lesson. A folk tale is an old story passed down over many years.
• In “A Bottle of Dew” by Sudha Murty, Rama Natha is a lazy man who wants a magic potion to make gold.
• The wise sage Mahipati gives him a trick task: grow banana plants and collect five litres of dew by hand.
• The dew had no magic. The task secretly made Rama Natha work hard for six years and build a huge banana plantation.
• He became rich from the hard work, not from magic. The lesson: real wealth comes from honest effort, not shortcuts.
• The poem “The Raven and the Fox” shows a fox that uses flattery (sweet, false praise) to fool a proud raven.
• The raven opens its beak to “sing”, drops its food, and the fox takes it. The lesson: do not be fooled by flattery, and do not be too proud.
• Both fables warn against the easy, foolish path and guide us towards being wise — through hard work and clear thinking.

What’s Next

In Unit 2, the theme changes from clever lessons to warm feelings. The next unit is about Friendship — stories and a poem about what it means to be a good friend, to help others, and to stand by the people we care about. You will see new characters and a gentle new set of lessons. See you there.