In South East Asian folklore the mousedeer is considered something of a genius. One bright morning , pangs of hunger rushed him to search for something to bite into or chew upon. As he searched for small fruits , even tender grass , to his
dismay , what looked green and nice from a distance away ,were old stubs , punched up shoots. As he looked up, yonder, but across a river, shrubs and grass danced and waved into his hungry eyes. He might just find someplace to wade across the river and sit down for a feast he thought. But as he neared the river, alas, it was teeming with crocs of all things ! Oh gosh , what now ? Then a lightning of an idea hit him.
He called out to the crocodiles in the river and said : 'The king of the jungle asked me to do a census of the animals in this jungle. And that includes you too , brothers and sisters ,' said mouse deer .'Tell me , how many of you are in there , in this stretch of water ?', asked the mousedeer . 'We don't really know ,' said one of them . 'Well then,' said the mouse deer,'why don't you line up , while I do the count? His majesty ,the king will not be happy if I gave him a wrong figure.' 'That's fine,' said the leader of the crocs.And so they dutifully fell into a line all the way to the other bank of the river.
The mousedeer, agog with glee in its bossoms , jumped atop the first croc , shouting : 1..2..3..4..5..6.. all the way to the other bank of the river. As soon as he landed on the other bank of the river , he yelled 'Thanks for the ride!'
The crocs smelt that they had been had. Then thunder hit their anger. They gnashed and ground their jaws in fury till their teeth fell off as dust . Not satiated, they raged the river dry and turned it into miles of mud. Mousedeer meanwhile sat down to days of meals , warm times and sunshines ..... !