One washer's donkey got so worked up carrying enormously heavy bundles of laundry that he almost died. The washer began to think: “Woe is me! How bad it all turned out. My business will now become worse and my earnings will fall. What should I do? Let me try to do this. I will buy a panther skin for three rupees and at night I will let the donkey in this skin go into the fields. He will graze on young shoots and, lo and behold, in a few days he will be completely stronger.” So he did. The plowman, when he noticed that someone was poisoning the crops, began to guard his fields.
And then one day he saw a donkey in the skin of a panther in the middle of a field.
“I’m dead,” thought the plowman, “it’s a panther!” And, throwing a blanket that had become damp during the night over himself and raising his bow above his head, he began to slowly get out of there.
Then the donkey noticed the plowman. “It’s a donkey!” - he decided. And, hastening towards his own death, he rushed after the plowman. The plowman quickened his pace.
"What's happened? - thought the donkey. “Maybe she’s mistaken about me, seeing this skin on me?” If I please her heart with my cry, then she will understand who I am.” And he started screaming. The watchman immediately realized that there was a donkey in front of him, turned back and, shooting at him with a bow, killed him.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru