World Story Bank

The Talkative Tortoise
A king of Benares cannot stop talking — he leaves no one else a moment to speak — and his wise adviser, who is the Buddha in an earlier life, searches for a gentle way to cure him of it. The chance arrives in the shape of a tortoise, who strikes up a friendship with two wild ducks and is offered a journey to a beautiful far-off mountain, on one simple condition: that he hold his tongue. A wise and witty tale from the Buddhist Jataka, of friendship, folly, and the perils of talking too much.
A traditional tale from India.
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 The World Story Bank is an initiative of the Scheherazade Foundation, gathering the folktales of the world, protecting them, and rewilding them back into modern culture. To hear more and support our work, visit https://www.sf.charity/world-story-bank

What is World Story Bank?

For most of human history, our accumulated wisdom was carried in a single, spellbinding chain of transmission: the folktale. Passed from voice to voice, generation to generation, these stories were – and remain – an instruction manual to the world.
The World Story Bank gathers the folktales and traditional stories of humanity — from all points of the compass — and returns them, alive, to the world. Each episode is a single tale, told simply, named with the tradition it comes from.
An initiative of the Scheherazade Foundation, the World Story Bank exists to gather this fragile and ancient wisdom, to protect it, and to rewild it back into modern culture. The project was launched in London in 2024, and celebrated its first anniversary in 2025 at an event hosted by Queen Camilla at Clarence House.
Listening and retelling keeps the stories alive.
https://www.sf.charity/world-story-bank

THE TALKATIVE TORTOISE

India

The future Buddha was once born in a minister’s family, when Brahma-datta was reigning in Benares; and when he grew up, he became the king’s adviser in things temporal and spiritual.

Now this king was very talkative; while he was speaking, others had no opportunity for a word. And the future Buddha, wanting to cure this talkativeness of his, was constantly seeking for some means of doing so.

At that time there was living, in a pond in the Himalaya mountains, a tortoise. Two young hamsas, or wild ducks, who came to feed there, made friends with him. And one day, when they had become friendly with him, they said to the tortoise:

‘Friend tortoise! the place where we live, at the Golden Cave on Mount Beautiful in the Himalaya country, is a delightful spot. Will you come there with us?’

‘But how can I get there?’

‘We can take you, if you can only hold your tongue, and will say nothing to anybody.’

‘Oh! that I can do. Take me with you.’

‘That’s right,’ said they. And making the tortoise bite hold of a stick, they themselves took the two ends in their teeth, and flew up into the air.

Seeing him thus carried by the hamsas, some villagers called out,

‘Two wild ducks are carrying a tortoise along on a stick!’ Whereupon the tortoise wanted to say, ‘If my friends choose to carry me, what is that to you, you wretched slaves!’

So just as the swift flight of the wild ducks had brought him over the king’s palace in the city of Benares, he let go of the stick he was biting, and falling in the open courtyard, split in two! And there arose a universal cry,

‘A tortoise has fallen in the open courtyard, and has split in two!’

The king, taking the future Buddha, went to the place, surrounded by his courtiers; and looking at the tortoise, he asked the Bodisat,

‘Teacher! how comes he to be fallen here?’

The future Buddha thought to himself,

‘Long expecting, wishing to admonish the king, have I sought for some means of doing so. This tortoise must have made friends with the wild ducks; and they must have made him bite hold of the stick, and have flown up into the air to take him to the hills. But he, being unable to hold his tongue when he hears anyone else talk, must have wanted to say something, and let go the stick; and so must have fallen down from the sky, and thus lost his life.’

And saying:

‘Truly, O king! those who are called chatter-boxes – people whose words have no end – come to grief like this,’ he uttered these Verses:

‘Verily the tortoise killed himself
Whilst uttering his voice;
Though he was holding tight the stick,
By a word himself he slew.
‘Behold him then, O excellent by strength!
And speak wise words, not out of season.
You see how, by his talking overmuch,
The tortoise fell into this wretched plight!’

The king saw that he was himself referred to, and said:

‘O Teacher! are you speaking of us?’

And the Bodisat spake openly, and said:

‘O great king! be it thou, or be it any other, whoever talks beyond measure meets with some mishap like this.’

And the king henceforth refrained himself, and became a man of few words.