The Rabbit Who Started a Stampede

A rabbit resting beneath a large fruit tree was startled awake by a loud thud as a ripe fruit fell to the ground nearby, and in his half-asleep confusion, he leapt to his feet convinced the earth itself was breaking apart beneath him. Without pausing to check, he bolted through the forest screaming that the world was ending.

Another rabbit, hearing his terror, asked what was happening, and receiving only "the earth is breaking up, run!" as an answer, joined the panicked flight without question. A deer saw the two rabbits fleeing and joined in, then a boar, then a buffalo, then an elephant, each new animal adding its own weight and speed to the stampede without ever once pausing to ask what had actually been witnessed firsthand, until the entire forest was in a thundering, blind panic based on nothing but a single rabbit's half-asleep assumption.

A wise lion, watching the chaos rushing toward a cliff edge, stepped into their path and calmly asked each animal in turn what exactly they had personally seen, working backward through the entire chain until he reached the original rabbit, who admitted honestly that he had only heard a sound and never actually looked to see what caused it. The lion walked with him back to the fruit tree, showed him the fallen fruit still lying where it landed, and the entire stampede dissolved in relieved, embarrassed laughter. The lion reminded them all as they dispersed: panic spreads fastest through those who repeat what they were told without ever asking whether anyone actually saw it themselves.