Al& Alicia Armstrong

01/29/2026

11/17/2025

⟡ The Blue Jackal ⟡

From the Panchatantra
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In the old stories of the Panchatantra (ancient Indian collection of fables, written over 2,000 years ago) there is a tale about a jackal who stumbled into power by accident.

While fleeing a pack of village dogs, the jackal hurled himself through an open doorway and fell straight into a vat of blue dye. When he climbed out again, his fur had turned a deep, unnatural indigo. Nothing in the forest looked like him anymore.

When he returned to the woodland, the animals stared in confusion. Some bowed. Some whispered. Believing him to be a celestial messenger, they asked who he was. The jackal saw his chance. He told them he had been sent from above to rule over them and restore order to the forest.

They accepted his word. They fed him. Protected him. Treated him as a king.
And to keep his secret safe, he drove away every jackal who might recognize him.

For a while, his false kingdom held.
Until one night a group of jackals howled in the distance.

The sound struck him like instinct. Before he could stop himself, he lifted his head and howled back. The forest fell silent. Every animal present understood exactly what he was.

The illusion shattered. The animals felt mocked and betrayed, and they turned on the blue pretender who had ruled them with borrowed colors. He fled back into the dark, stripped of the throne he had claimed.

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The tale leaves no gentle lesson. It simply shows how easily power built on deception collapses once truth finds a voice.

08/20/2024

We remember
~Ryan

08/18/2024

Phil McGee…..just upon case…

07/04/2024

03/06/2024

02/15/2024

44 years ago today | February 13, 1980

Photo courtesy of the Lake Placid Olympic Museum