Not Found

When mother hyena was away, Anansis, the spider, went to her den and informed her cubs that he was their uncle, For-you-all.

“Wake me up when your mother brings food,” he said and curling up in a corner, went to sleep.

Presently Mother hyena came with meat which she gave to her cubs, saying :” This is for you all.”

The cubs woke up the spider and gave him the meat which he devoured. Mother hyena brought meat twice more, on each occasion saying ” this is for you all”, while handing over the food to her cubs. Each time, the cubs dutifully woke up Anansis and gave him the meat.

In the evening when Mother hyena came home the cubs started crying for food. ” Still hungry after all the meat I gve you?” she asked , surprised.

” Uncle ate it all!” they wailed. the spider , realising that it was time to run, darted out of the cave and sprinted away.

” That’s Uncle For-you-all!” shoubed the cubs.

” Is he!” said the mother, grimly , and bounded after the spider. Anansis rushed into Dog’s house and sat beside him.

“I’ve finished eating,” said the dog. ” I’ve nothing to offer you.”

“That’s all right,” said the spider, ” I’ve already eaten. that’s why I’m here.”

The hyena came in just then.

” Which of you was the rascal I was chasing !” she demanded.

The spider pointed to the dog. ” He has been running,” he said. ” See how he’s panting with his tongue hanging out.”

The huena pounced on the dog who twisted away and jumped out of the window. The hyena followed him. The spider, knowing that it would be a long time before the dog got back, stretched out on the bed for a short snooze.

Thousands of years ago, the Jade Emperor of China organized a race of animals. The first 12 animals to finish were to be given a place in the Chinese Zodiac, and have a year named after them.

The cat and the rat, both late-risers asked th ox to wake them at dawn on the day of the reace.

Came the day. The Ox tried to wake the cat and the rat, but without success. They would open their eyes, turn to the other side and go back to sleep. The race was about to start.Unwilling to leave them, the Ox coaxed them onto his back and started running. The rat woke up just as the oc was crossing the last hurdle , a river. The sly rat knew that he could never beat the cat in the race.He took the chance fate offered him and pushed the cat off the ox’s back. When the ox reached the other side, the rat jumped off and scampered to victory, just ahead of the ox. The tiger came third, but he cheated. He crossed the river by using the backs of the animals swimming across as stepping stones, leaping from one to another.

So the 12-year cycle of the Chinese Zodiac begins with the rat. After him comes the ox who is followed by the tiger. After them come the rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig, in that order.

The cat, it must be noted, has no place in the zodiac. She wasn’t among the first twelve. In fact she was lucky to finish, having almost drowned in the river.

So is it any wonder that cats chase rats? They can never forget the humiliation heaped on their anscestor by a tricky rodent!

Long ago, the Lion was the only animal with a tail. One day he decided that all animals should have a tail like him and got tails made for all the animals in his kingdom.

When the tails were ready he summoned all his subjects to his cave palace so that he could hand out the appendages.

All the animals went except the dassie. the dassie felt too lazy to go and asked a monkey going by to fetch his tail for him.

The Lion had selected a small furry tail for the dassie. when the monkey explained that the dassie could not come and had asked him to being the tail, the Lion gave it to him.

The monkey had been given a nice long tail but as he was going home it occurred to him that the tail would look better if it were a fit furry towards the end. So he attached the dassie’s tail to it.

The dassie was very disappointed when he learnt that the monkey had kept his tail for himself. But he was too lazy to pursue the monkey to try to get his tail back and that is why he remains tailless to this day.

A group of monkeys decide to go on a fast one day.

” Before we begin, I thnk we should keep the food with which we’ll break the fast ready,” counselled the old monkey chief.

The monkeys nodded their heads in agreement. the yougsters were sent in search of food. They returned with huge hands of delicious-looking bananas.

” I think each of us should keep our share of bananas with us before we begin our fast, so that we don’t spend time distributing them after we break our fast. You can imagine how hungry we all will be by then !” said the chief’s wife.

The monkey’s liked the idea and they collected their share of the bananas.

” Why don’t we peel one banana and keep it ready to eat?” said one of the youngsters.

” Yes, let’s do tht,” shouted a fat monkey in agreement. Just looking at the banans was making him hungry.

” All right,” said the monkey chief. ” We shall peel the bananas but under no condition should we eat them.”

So the monkeys peeled their bananas and carefully kept them reasy for eating in the evening.

” Can I keep the banana in my mouth ? I promise not to eat it till evening. Please !” a little monkey asked his father.

” Why don’t we all put a banana in out mouth? That way we can chew it immediately when we break the fast,” said his father., who had agreed to go on the fast only because his wife had not given him a choice. ” As long as we don’t eat it, it should be fine,” he added.

So, the monkeys put the bananas in their mouths. One by one they eyed each other uncomfortably as they began their fast- and as you can imagine, within no time at all, the bananas disappeared down their gullets. and that ws the end of their fast !

There was once a big cave. The top part of the cave was dry and there was water in the bottom part of it. Many animals lived in the dry part and a crocodile lived in the bottom part of it. He liked to lie in the water and sleep. Sometimes he came out of the cave for a short time.

One day a hunter with his bow and arrow came near the cave. He saw the crocodile and decided to kill him. He aimed at the crocodile. But he became blind at once. The hunter dropped his arrow and he began to see agin. He saw the smiling crocodile of course. The crocodile was happy. The hunter aimed at the crocodile a second time and again he became blind.

Then the hunter ran back to the village where he lived and told the people about the crocodile. ” As I aimed at him I became blind. The arrow fell out of my bow and then I could see again, ” he said.

The people of the village did not believe him. many of them took their bows and arrows and went off to the cave . They saw the crocodile. he was lying in the sun near the cave. They aimed at him and became blind.

” Take your arrows from your bows, ” the hunter cried. They did so and could see again ! It was clear the the crocodile was a magic crocodile.

” No man can kill me ,” thought the happy crocodile and went back to the cave. The other animals in the cave were happy, too. The magic crocodile did not let the hunters kill them and of course, they said ” thank you” to the crocodile. Many young men came to the cave and tried to kill the crocodile . But nobody could do it with bows and arrows. In those days hunters knew nothing about the guns. The first hunter with a gun in his hands killed our crocodile. The Crocodile’s magic worked only against bows aqnd arrows. It did not work against the guns.

Once there lived a Frog who had two wives. His first wife lived in Dumbi and the second wife lived in Dala. He himself lived a little place between Dumbi and Dala. He went sometimes to Dumbi and sometimes to Dala to see his wives.

Once a little Frog fame to him and said, ” Come to Dumbi, please ! your first wife has a nice pudding for you. Come at once while the pudding is hot !” The Frog was very happy, because he liked puddings very much.

He was ready to go when another little frog came up to him and said, ” Please , come to Dala. Your second wife has a nice pudding for you. Come at once while the pudding is hot”.

The frog sat down and began to think.

” If I go to my wife for the pudding , my second wife will be so sorry and angry. If I go to my second wife for the pudding , my first wife will be sorry and angry, too. Where shall I go to Dumbi or to Dala? ” He sat and thought for a long time. And he stayed at home and began to cry ” Oh! where sahll I go, where shall I go ?” Now, when you hear frogs gaou, gaou, gaou, you will understand that it means: ” Where shall I go? where shall I go ? Where shall I go? Go Go Go?” How bad it is to have two wives who make puddings at the same time.”

” Don’t fo near the well ! Don’t play round it ! ” Mother Hen said to her children. And they never came to the well. But once a little chicken ran to the well and stopped there. ” Why is the well so bad?” he thought. ” I am here and everything is all right with me. Let me see what is in the well.

And he jumped up to look into it. And what did he see there?

He saw another chicken! Our chiken turned his head. The chicken in the well did the same. The chicken jumped. So did the chicken in the well. He became angry with the chiken in the well and decided to have a fight with him. He jumped down into the well. But there was no chicken to fight with, but only water and water. He cried, ” Help me , help me !” But nobody heard him. He went down under the cold water and nobody saw him again.

Moral: Always listen to what your elders say.

One day, a very long time ago, some people went hunting. They walked and walked in the bush but found nothing. When night came, they were very far from home.

” We must sleep in the bush,” the chief said, ” .

The hunters were not afraid to sleep in the bush. But they knew elephants, lions and other animals sometimes killed sleeping hunters. And there were some bad people , too in the the bushes.

The hunters came to a place with big trees round it. They decided to rest and sleep on the grass. They did not make a fire and ate only some nuts which they carried in their bags. That was their supper. Then they went to sleep. All of them were tired.

They slept soundly and did not hear anything. They did not hear that their enemies were coming nearer and nearer to them. But in one of the trees above the sleeping men something moved and fell down on the head of a young hunter. He jumped up and cried . A big python was on his head.

The hunters got up quickly and saw the enemies round them. A fight began. Soon the enemies ran away .

The hunters came up to their chief .” What made you jump uo ?” the chief asked the young hunter.

” It was a python,” he said. ” It fell on my head, but it did not kill me.”

Then the chief said, ” From this day on our people will never kill a python. That python saved our lives. Pythons will be sacred animals in our country.”

There was a time when some birds and some animals lived in the sky. The Dog and the hen too lived there.

One day it was very cold and rainy in the sky. The birds asked the Dog to go down to the earth and bring some fire to make the sky warm.

The Dog went down and came to a man’s house. He saw many bones near the house. He began to eat the bones and forgot the birds and the fire.

The birds waited and waited for the Dog, but he did not come back. He decided to live with the man.

As it was still cold, the birds sent the Hen down to bring some fire.

The Hen went to a man’s house and sw some seeds near the house. She liked the seeds very much.

The Hen did not think about the fire, but ate up the seeds. And she decided to live with the man too.

That’s why the birds and the animals do not like the dog and the hen. They left their friends in the cold for the sake of good food. Now youknow how the dog and the hen became domestic animals.

Once a frog that lived in a well bragged to a turtle that lived in the sea

” I’m so happy ! ” cried the frog, ” When I go out, I jump about the railing around the edge of the well.

When I come home, I rest in the holes inside the wall of the well.

If I jump in to the water ,it comes all the way up to my armpits and i can float on my belly.

If I walk in the mud, it covers up my flippered feet.

I look around at the wriggly worms , crabs and tadpoles
and none of them can compare with me.

I am lord of this well and I stand tall here. My happiness is great. My dear sir, why don’t you come often and look around my place ? ”

Before the turtle from the sea could get its left foot in the well, its right knee got stuck. It hesitated and retreated. The turtle told the frog about the sea.

” Even a distance of a thousand miles cannot give you an idea of the sea’s width; even a height of a thousand meters cannot give you an idea of its depth.

In the ime of the great floods , the waters in the sea didi not increase. Durring the terrible droughts, the water in the sea didi not decrease. The sea does not change along with the passage of time and its level does not rise or fall according to the amount of rain that falls. The greatest happiness is to live in the sea.”

After listening to these words, the frog of the shallow well was shocked into realisation of his own insignificabce and became very ill at ease.
.