Reading Week 9: South African Folk-Tales part A

File:2012-bb-jackal-1.jpg
Jackal, Source: Wikimedia Commons

South African Folk-Tales by James Honey

The Lost Message
The various types of ants never learned to get along to protect themselves, so they are constantly getting eaten by other creatures.  A beetle was supposed to inform them on how to get along, but he never arrived with the message.  This is a slightly ironic ending. 

The Monkey's Fiddle
I like the idea of magical objects.  A fiddle that can make anyone dance sounds interesting.

The Tiger, The Ram, and The Jackal
I have read this plot before, where a threatening animal is tricked into thinking that a nonthreatening animal will eat him because a third animal (normally someone who is less than the first animal and greater than the second animal on the food chain) takes the threatening animal to the nonthreatening one, and the non threatening one says, "where is [the third animal] he was supposed to bring me another animal to eat."

The Lion, the Jackal, and the Man
The Lion thought that the man was spitting fire at him (it was really a gun) and stabbed him with a rib (really a knife).  It would be interesting to have characters try to make sense of things that they have never seen before.

There are many stories of the Jackal fooling the Lion.  He is portrayed a s selfish, and a trickster. 

The Lioness and the Ostrich
The Lioness seemed to think that because the ostrich did not have teeth, it could not be her equal.  This is odd because the ostrich had killed more game than she did.  The moral seems to be that not all power is equal.

The story of a Dam
The jackal was caught by the tortoise, but then tricked the Lion again. The Lion never seems to win in these stories. 


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