Panchatantra Blue Jackal

tale:panchatantra_blue_jackal

A jackal, fleeing dogs, tumbles into a vat of indigo and emerges dyed blue. Unrecognizable, he proclaims himself a heaven-sent king and rules the awed beasts, until one evening the howling of distant jackals stirs him to howl in answer; his own cry betrays his kind, and the beasts fall upon him. Moral: a false identity is undone by one's own nature. — Panchatantra (attrib. Vishnu Sharma)