The Jackal and the Empty War Drum

A jackal, wandering the forest half-starved after a poor season of hunting, heard a deep, thunderous booming sound coming from a dense thicket nearby and froze in terror, certain some massive, powerful beast lay concealed within, ready to destroy anything that approached. He kept his distance for two full days, hungry but too frightened to investigate.

By the third day, hunger finally overpowered his fear, and he crept cautiously toward the source of the sound, ready to flee at the first sign of danger. What he found, after all his dread, was an old war drum abandoned on the battlefield years before, now caught between two trees whose branches beat against its taut skin whenever the wind blew, producing the same booming sound that had terrified him for two full days.

Relieved and a little embarrassed at his own fear, the jackal gnawed through the drum's skin to find it completely hollow inside — no beast, no danger, nothing at all but empty space that had somehow produced the loudest, most frightening sound in the entire forest. He told the story to every animal he met afterward, adding always the same observation: the loudest, most intimidating noises very often come from things that are completely hollow inside, and true danger is rarely the thing making the most commotion about itself.