The Grateful Animals and the Ungrateful Man

A kind-hearted man traveling through the forest heard cries for help from a deep pit and, peering in, found a snake, a rat, a parrot, and a human merchant all trapped together, having fallen in at different times. He lowered a rope and pulled each of them out in turn, asking nothing in return.

The snake, the rat, and the parrot each promised that if he was ever in need, he had only to call for them, and each meant it sincerely. The merchant, too, promised eternal gratitude and invited the man to visit his shop anytime for whatever he needed, free of charge.

Some time later, having fallen on hard times, the man visited the merchant's shop to collect on the promise — and was instead accused of theft, beaten, and thrown into prison on false charges, the merchant having decided it was cheaper to betray him than to honor an old debt.

In his darkest hour, the man remembered the animals. The parrot spread word of his innocence throughout the region, the rat gnawed through his prison bindings at night, and the snake, with a bite that could be healed only by an antidote it alone knew, poisoned a nobleman and then "coincidentally" cured him only after the wrongly imprisoned man was brought in and credited publicly with the cure — securing both his freedom and his reputation, entirely through the loyalty of the very creatures the merchant would have considered beneath his notice.