Weighing the Elephant

"Weighing the Elephant" is an interesting tale from the series of Folk Tales and is brought to you by the Reading Klub.

Long ago, people in China had only heard of a strange and magnificent animal called an elephant that lived in a faraway land. One day, a wealthy merchant from India brought a huge and strong Elephant to be presented to the Emperor of China.

People in China had never seen such a huge animal before.

Therefore, people from all across China came to see an elephant.

People were chanting “This elephant is even bigger than a bison!”.

The Emperor was equally amazed by the giant creature. One day, the Emperor came up with a strange idea. He announced that I am going to give a huge prize to a person who will tell me how much this elephant weighs.

People in desire of a huge prize lined up to suggest ideas to the Emperor. One man said that “We can just simply put it on a scale to measure its weight”. The Emperor was not impressed by the idea and replied, “There is no scale as big to bear the weight of an Elephant”.

Another person, who was a tailor, suggested that “We will measure the Elephant”. The Emperor replied that “Even if you measure the whole elephant, you won’t still find its weight”.

The third person, a butcher by profession, said that “We will cut it into small pieces and then scale it”.

The Emperor shook his head in awe and roared, “We will surely not do that!”. Feeling hopeless, he said, “Is there no one who can tell me how to weigh the elephant?”.

A low-pitched voice was heard saying, “I can.” All eyes turned to the voice, it was the Emperor’s son. “Son!” said the Emperor. “You should be in your bed.” “But I know how it can be weighed,” said the boy.

The Emperor anxiously said to the Son, “Tell me how we can do that”.

The boy started explaining with calmness, “The Elephant can be boarded on a big boat. A line must be marked to indicate the place where the boat touches the water. Then take the Elephant out of the boat and fill it with rocks. Once the boat filled with rocks reaches the same watermark line, bring it back to shore. Weigh all the rocks on the ship, one by one. This is how you will learn how much the elephant weighs.”

The Emperor was overjoyed to hear his Son’s explanation. “Indeed it will work,” shouted all. Everyone started praising the intelligence of the Emperor’s Son. There was no doubt that the prince would become a great Emperor one day.