Ethiopian Folktales

Narrator Unknown

Once upon a time there were four brothers, and just outside their village was a huge forest which was unexplored. This forest was unexplored because it was ruled by the king of the hyenas and he had plenty of wild hyenas roaming the forest so nobody dared to go in.

Now one day the four brothers decided to go together and explore the forest. So the four of them got together and went into the forest. At first nothing happened, but when they got to the centre of the forest they found themselves surrounded by a troop of hyenas and the king.

The hyena king called them and said, “How dare you come into my forest? I want to know what gave you the courage to dare to come into my kingdom.”

And he called the first brother and said, “So, what are you relying on?”

The first brother said, “I rely on God, the creator of this world. He has created me and he has plans in my life and the day of my death has already been written in his books. So I have nothing to fear because it’s all predestined.”

So the king turned to the second brother and said, “And who are you relying on?”

And the second brother said, “I’m relying on my clansmen who are all very bold and fierce and they won’t let one of their family die in vain. So if anyone kills me, then my clansmen will go and take their revenge. I have no fear.”

The king of hyenas then turned to the third brother and said, “And you? What are you relying on?”

The third brother said, “I rely on Mother Earth. Mother Earth gave birth to me. I’ll die and I’ll be buried in her whenever my day comes. So I put all my faith in Mother Earth.”

Then the king called the fourth one and said, “How about you?”

And the fourth one said, “Oh, I rely on you, the hyenas. You see, I have some friends who are hyenas and I rely on the strength and goodness of the hyenas yourselves.”

So the king called his soldiers and said, “Look, this man relies on his Creator, and we can’t quarrel with God, so we should let him go. And the second relies on his clansmen and obviously we don’t want to have a feud with his clan, so he might as well go. And the third one relies on Mother Earth and who can live on this earth and quarrel with her? We’ll let him go. But the fourth one relies on us, the hyenas, and there’s no big deal if we quarrel among ourselves, so let’s eat him up.”

So they did.