The folktale of the donkey who tried to do the job of the dog is one of the idiom stories that provides moral lessons, from the Sinhalese folklore. The story contains a mention of a man beating up a donkey. Otherwise, the story is non-violent, which makes it suitable for kids as bedtime stories, moral stories, or folktales.
Once upon a time, there lived a Gamarala (a villager). This villager had a donkey for transporting his goods and a dog for protection. The donkey helped with taking heavy bags on his back for Gamarala. Carrying rice bags, vegetable bags, and sometimes Gamarala’s daughter were the duties of the donkey. The dog’s job was to protect Gamarala’s house from thieves. Otherwise, the dog was sleeping.
Although this dog and the donkey helped him a lot, the Gamarala did not treat them well. Gamarala was a cheapskate. He gave so little food to the dog and the donkey. But the donkey could eat grass from wherever it went. The dog, on the other hand, was upset with this. The dog has saved Gamarala and his belongings countless times from thieves. But Gamarala was unkind to the dog.
One day, Gamarala hit the dog with a stick for drinking water from a pot kept in the backyard. That day, the dog was so upset. So the dog spent the entire day sleeping on a corner in the front yard.
That day, at midnight, a group of thieves came to Gamarala’s house. The dog saw the thieves but did not bark at them. Instead, he looked away and slept. The donkey saw the thieves and wondered why the dog was not barking at them. The thieves came so close to the house that they started to break open the door. Seeing this, the donkey who was in the shed could not stay doing nothing.
“I don’t know why the dog doesn’t bark and let Gamarala know that thieves have come. Anyway, if the dog doesn’t do his job, I should shout and let Gamarala know.” The donkey thought.
Then the donkey took a deep and long breath. Then it moved his head towards the ground and shouted as loud as it could.
Hearing the donkey shout aloud, the Gamarala woke up from sleep. Not only Gamarala, but everyone at home woke up. Listening to the unexpected noise, the thieves ran away before Gamarala woke up.
Gamarala came out of the house. The dog was lying and sleeping in the yard. No one was there. Gamarala checked the donkey shed to see if there was something like a snake near the donkey. Only the donkey was there, standing and looking at Gamarala.
So, what Gamarala saw was that the donkey shouted and did not let him sleep. And that made him so angry. He was so angry that he was not sleepy anymore. Gamrala looked around and took a wooden pole. Then he went to the donkey and beat the donkey. The poor donkey screamed even harder. The harder the screams, the harder Gamarala beats the donkey. After a while, Gamarala cooled down a little bit. He threw away the pole and went back into the house. The poor donkey, who was only trying to serve his master as a loyal friend, only got a beating from him.
From that day onwards, when someone is doing the tasks appointed for someone else and gets into trouble, or just simply when someone is doing something that is not their duty, Sinhalese people say, “Ballage Wede Buruwa Karanna Giya Wagey.” That means, like the donkey trying to do the job of the dog.