The Foolish Dragon
Once there was a dragon living in the ocean who was worried about his wife’s health.
“You don’t seem at all well,” he said to his wife. “Is there anything I can get you to make you feel better?”
“I do have a craving for monkey heart,” she confessed.
He was anxious to help his wife. So he swam off to the shore to see if he could find a monkey. He eventually did come across a monkey sitting quietly in a tree eating pine nuts. The dragon asked the monkey if he wasn’t bored with eating the same nuts all the time.
“If you like, I could give you a ride across the sea,” the dragon said, very pleased with himself for being so sneaky. “I know a place where there is a whole forest of trees laden with a great variety of nuts and fruit.”
The monkey agreed he could do with a change of diet, so he hopped on the dragon’s back. Not far from the shore, the dragon dived beneath the waves.
“What are you doing?” spluttered the monkey, his mouth full of seawater.
The dragon explained that he needed the monkey’s heart for his ailing wife.
“You should have said so before!” the monkey exclaimed. “I left my heart up in that tree. Take me back and I’ll get it.”
The foolish dragon did as the monkey said. The monkey jumped onto the shore and scurried up his tree. The dragon waited and waited, but the monkey never returned.