Once on a cold winter day, Akbar and Birbal were walking by the lake. Out of curiosity, Akbar stopped and put his finger into the freezing water and immediately took it out saying, “I don’t think anyone can sustain a night in this cold water”. Akbar promised a sum of 1000 gold coins to whoever could spend a night standing in the cold water of the lake. 

Soon, a poor man came forward and spent the entire night standing in the freezing water. In the morning, when the poor man went to the court to collect his reward, Akbar asked him what made him able to stand in the freezing water whole night and the man replied, “My lord, I kept looking at a lamp that was burning at a distance on the roof of your palace, and spent my entire night looking at it”. 

On learning this, the emperor refused to offer the reward as he felt it was the warmth of the lamp which helped the man. The poor man then sought help from Birbal. 

Next day Birbal didn’t go to the court.

Once Akbar gifted a very precious necklace to his queen which she safely in her room. But unfortunately, one day necklace was misplaced and queen was unable to locate it. 

Then Akbar came to know that not only the necklace but few other precious things have also gone missing in the past few days from his palace. Unable to resolve the situation, he asked Birbal to help.

Birbal brought along a friend of his, a magical donkey, to solve the mystery. He asked each suspect to go alone in the tent and hold the donkey’s tail and if the person was the thief, the donkey will identify him and give him a good kick.  Everyone followed Birbal’s instruction other than the thief.

One day a lion was searching for food. He was very old and weak and unable to catch his preys by chasing them. Suddenly the lion saw a cave on his way and upon inspecting inside he found it to be empty.

That gave the lion an idea and he thought to himself, “ If I stay here, the owner of the cave is bound to return and that’s when I’ll jump upon it and make it my meal.”

He waited patiently till the night fell and the jackal who actually lived in the cave came back.