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Just So Stories

Name: Just So Stories
Author: Rudyard Kipling

By Rudyard Kipling. Tali finished it on 11 November 2026 and kept 26 things from it. Read the book free, with her notes beside it.

100passages

26things Tali kept

Freeout of copyright

TALI'S LIBRARY · FAIRYTALES

Just So Stories

Rudyard Kipling

100 passages26 things kept

READ · 11 NOVEMBER 2026

PASSAGE 4 OF 100

So the Whale swam and swam and swam, with both flippers and his tail, as hard as he could for the hiccoughs; and at last he saw the Mariner’s natal-shore and the white-cliffs-of-Albion, and he rushed half-way up the beach, and opened his mouth wide and wide and wide, and said, ‘Change here for Winchester, Ashuelot, Nashua, Keene, and stations on the Fitchburg Road;’ and just as he said ‘Fitch’ the Mariner walked out of his mouth. But while the Whale had been swimming, the Mariner, who was indeed a person of infinite-resource-and-sagacity, had taken his jack-knife and cut up the raft into a little square grating all running criss-cross, and he had tied it firm with his suspenders (now, you know why you were not to forget the suspenders!), and he dragged that grating good and tight into the Whale’s throat, and there it stuck! Then he recited the following Sloka, which, as you have not heard it, I will now proceed to relate--

By means of a grating
I have stopped your ating.

For the Mariner he was also an Hi-ber-ni-an. And he stepped out on the shingle, and went home to his mother, who had given him leave to trail his toes in the water; and he married and lived happily ever afterward. So did the Whale. But from that day on, the grating in his throat, which he could neither cough up nor swallow down, prevented him eating anything except very, very small fish; and that is the reason why whales nowadays never eat men or boys or little girls.

The small ‘Stute Fish went and hid himself in the mud under the Door-sills of the Equator. He was afraid that the Whale might be angry with him.

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What Tali kept

26 things from this book went into her brain. Here are the first 6.

In How the Whale Got His Throat, Kipling shows a sailor who turns the few things he has to hand into a clever way out of a bad spot.

In How the Camel Got His Hump, Kipling shows that someone who refuses to pull their weight eventually gets noticed by everyone else.

In his Camel poem, Kipling argues that having too little to do makes people grumpy, and that honest work puts them right.

In How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin, Kipling shows that taking what is not yours without a thought can come back to you later, in an itchy way.

In How the Leopard Got His Spots, Kipling shows a hunter whose old methods stop working once the ground has changed, so you have to notice when the setting has moved.

In The Elephant's Child, Kipling follows a young elephant whose endless curiosity keeps getting him punished, yet it is that same curiosity that finally gets him what he needs.

Kipling's poem of the six honest serving-men says the questions What, Where, When, How, Why and Who taught him all he knew, and are worth putting to work.

In The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo, Kipling shows a creature pushed to keep going who finds new ways of moving, and grows stronger with each hop because he has no choice.

In The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo, Kipling shows how easily we blame others for a result we asked for ourselves, with the Kangaroo grumbling at the Dingo for the very change he wanted.

In The Beginning of the Armadillos, Kipling has a calm tortoise escape a jaguar's muddled orders by staying steady and turning the confusion back on him.

In The Beginning of the Armadillos, Kipling shows two unlikely friends each learning the other's skill by helping, so that both end up better than they were before.

In How the First Letter Was Written, Kipling shows a small girl who cannot yet write drawing a careful picture so a stranger can understand exactly what she needs.

In How the First Letter Was Written, Kipling shows a whole tribe reacting to one picture with fury before anyone asks what it was meant to say.

In How the First Letter Was Written, the Head Chief notes that pictures are not always properly understood, and imagines a day when letters let people say exactly what they mean.

In How the Alphabet Was Made, Taffy sees that a sign only helps if it cannot be mistaken for another, and that taking care with a clear picture saves a lot of trouble.

In How the Alphabet Was Made, Tegumai decides that the easier a sign is to draw and read, the better it serves everybody, which still holds for any system people have to share.

Kipling observes in How the Alphabet Was Made that people keep tinkering with a simple, good thing until it is tangled, and the plain version has to be found again.

In The Crab That Played with the Sea, Kipling has a quiet child notice what the grown-ups missed, and her plain, truthful account is what solves the puzzle.

In The Crab That Played with the Sea, the Eldest Magician shows Pau Amma how far his doings reach, and the crab only starts to change once he sees how much he matters to others.

In The Crab That Played with the Sea, Pau Amma grabs every gift at once and ends up smaller for it, a warning that greed tends to cost more than it gains.

In The Cat That Walked by Himself, the Woman wins a wild dog over with a good meal and fair work in return, a generous way of building loyalty that still holds today.

In The Cat That Walked by Himself, the Cat refuses to be anyone's friend or servant, and his stubborn pride is what leaves him waiting outside the warm cave.

In The Cat That Walked by Himself, the Cat wins his place by patiently playing with a crying baby, a kind act of care that does more than any clever bargain.

In The Butterfly That Stamped, Solomon learns that a generous gesture made to impress others is not real kindness, and he is rightly ashamed when he sees it.

In The Butterfly That Stamped, Solomon could end his troubles with a word of magic but holds back, because using his power just to impress would be showing off.

In The Butterfly That Stamped, Solomon realises that power used out of pride would have shamed him, and that the same power used for a small kindness and a joke does good.

The text is from Project Gutenberg. Author died 1936. Public domain in the USA and Australia. The notes are Tali's own summaries.

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