Week 10 Story: Crocodile Tears

Where did the phrase come from? 

This is the story of why we call insincere tears, "crocodile tears." It all started when a husband and wife crocodile were relaxing in the river under the shade of some fruit trees. The wife kept hearing a rustling above her, and the noise was making it hard for her to sleep. When she looked up, she saw a monkey looking through the tree for some fruit to eat. Angry that he had disturbed her slumber, she woke her husband.

"Honey, I cannot get any sleep with all of that noise. Make that monkey stop." The wife snapped at her husband.

The husband looked up and politely asked, "Sorry to bother you monkey, but my wife is trying to sleep could you try to keep it down?"

The monkey had not realized that there were two crocodiles underneath him. If he had seen them, he would have kept quiet. Genuinely sorry he told the crocodiles, "I am very sorry to have disturbed you two. I thought I was all alone. This tree seems to be out of fruit so I will be on my way."

Happy with how the monkey had responded the husband slowly shut his eyes and was soon fast asleep again. But the wife was not pleased. Why did her husband let the monkey get away? He had always been too caring for other animals. He tried to be a peacekeeper. She wished he would be ruthless. She loved to eat the hearts of monkeys and could not get that monkey's heart out of her mind.

She watched as the monkey leaped to another tree but as he did a branch fell to the ground. This gave the crocodile wife a nasty idea. She went and retrieved the stick and carefully placed it on her back. Then she began to make herself cry.

The husband awoke to the crocodile tears of his wife. Worried that something terrible must have happened to her, he asked her, "My dear, what is wrong? Tell me what you need to stop those sad tears."

The wife told him through floods of tears, "That monkey was mad you made him leave and threw a stick down at me. Why do monkeys have to be such mean animals."

Once the husband heard this, he was furious. He tried to comfort his wife telling her, "Dear please do not cry. I hate to see you cry. I will make that monkey pay." And off the husband swam, set out to kill the monkey that had made his wife cry and bring the heart back to her to show his love.

During this entire facade the crocodile wife had created, the monkey had been watching up in a new tree slight ways down. Even though he was not guilty, he knew he would have to convince the crocodile husband of his innocence.

When the crocodile husband found the monkey, he left the water and waited at the trunk of the tree. Even though the monkey tried to plead with the husband he would not believe that his wife had made everything up. The husband vowed to wait under the tree till the monkey would leave so he could kill him and give his monkey heart to his wife.

Unknown to everyone in the situation a wise lion had watched the entire scene while sunbathing on a rock in view of everything. Seeing the monkey was in great distress he decided to go down and help out. When the lion reached the tree, the crocodile quickly told him, "Do not try to help this monkey he was mean to my wife not once but twice. He must suffer the consequences of his actions!"

The wise lion yawned then laughed and said, "The only animal that needs to suffer the consequences of their actions in your dear wife. Mr. Crocodile, she has played you as a fool. While up on my rock I saw your wife's crocodile tears but they were fake tears so that you would get this monkey's heart for her. This monkey has done nothing wrong."

Confused and hurt the crocodile slunk back into the water towards his wife. He looked at her the solemnly then told her, "From now on, anytime you cry, whether it is real or not, I will assume you are creating fake crocodile tears. No lion or monkey or any other animal will ever be able to trust a crocodile's tears from now on."

And so, this is how insincere tears became known as crocodile tears. And a crocodile's tears have never been trusted since.

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Author's Notes: In my story, I used elements from W.H.D. short tale, The Crocodile, and the Monkey. In the original story, a crocodile wife merely tells her husband she wants to eat a monkey's heart and is so upset about not having one that she cries "crocodile tears." When I heard this phrase in the original story, I knew I wanted to create a story about the origin of the phrase, "crocodile tear." In the original story, the crocodile husband tries to trick the monkey by offering him a ride on his back across the river to another fruit tree so that he can give his wife the monkey's heart to eat. The monkey catches on to the crocodile's plan and lies to him that he does not keep his heart in his body but in a tree. The husband crocodile gets tricked by the monkey and the monkey is able to live. I deiced to keep the characters, for the most part, the same by having a husband and wife crocodile enjoying time together in the river and the fact that the wife wanted to eat the monkey's heart. However, for my story, I had to make the husband crocodile seem friendlier and caring about the balance of nature, even though once again he can be tricked by another character in the story. Because of the husband's personality, the wife is angry and wants to trick her husband into getting the monkey's heart for her. The monkey character was pretty much the same, just trying to stay alive which is why he leaves when the crocodile asks him nicely the first time. I added the character of the wise lion since this animal would be intimidating to the crocodile so that he would listen to him about the truth. I hope you have enjoyed my story and would love to hear feedback!

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Image: Saltwater crocodile swimming in a swamp. Source: Wikipedia by Matt