A Story About a Beaver

March 24, 2007 5:29 AM

A friend asked my to try and find a story her grandfather used to tell her mother, possibly by Rudyard Kipling. The info is pretty slim; All she knows is it's about a beaver who keeps going back to chomp at the same tree, and the other animals all say to him "the tree will fall into the lake". They set traps for the beaver, including a pit of spikes and smearing the tree with some bitter substance. In the end, the beaver goes away. Sorry, that's all I got. Hope it rings a bell! Thanks in advance!
posted by Silky Slim to media & arts (1 comment total)

Probably not the same thing, but "The Mouse and His Child" by Russell Hoban has a wonderfully memorable tree-felling incident. The tree fellers are the tin mice, and they are acting in a beaver-like manner under the influence of The Muskrat.
posted by handee at 9:18 AM on March 24, 2007