The Frog King's Foolish Trust

An old, blind snake, no longer able to hunt frogs by chasing them, lay motionless at the edge of a pond looking pitiful until a passing frog asked what troubled him.

"I was cursed by a sage," the snake lied, "for biting his son by accident, and told I could only eat frogs given to me freely, never hunted. Since I cannot hunt anymore anyway, I thought perhaps I could serve your king as a mount instead, to earn my keep honestly."

The frog king, delighted at the idea of a snake carrying him about in style, agreed at once. Each day the snake carried him faithfully on his back through the pond, earning the trust of every frog who watched — and each evening, as payment "graciously offered," he was given one weak or elderly frog to eat, exactly as arranged.

The colony shrank steadily, frog by frog, and by the time the survivors finally understood the pattern, the "cursed" snake had regained enough strength to hunt freely again — and did.