Jataka

And now for the old king's rendering of the Vessantara Jataka.

But one night she had said instead, "Now let me tell you a Jataka story!"

After a while she made up her mind to relate a Jataka story that night.

This is derived from the Karma Jataka, which was possibly the ultimate source of the whole series of tales.

The fashion is universal among savages; it descends to the Buddha's jataka, or parables, to Æsop and La Fontaine.