The Dog and the Donkey that Brayed
Narrated by Magabi Enyew Gessesse
The donkey and the dog were living together.
The donkey said to the dog, “They put everything on my back. Heavy things. And they don’t even let me eat what I carry for them on my back. And you, dog, you guard the house day and night and they give you nothing except a few bones. Why don’t we run from our wicked masters and go and live with another master?”
So they went off.
They reached a forest with very green grass and water. The donkey ate and drank, while the dog slept.
After eating that she said, “Let me bray once in this lovely forest.”
“No, I’m afraid. Please don’t. I can’t protect you from danger.”
“But I can’t resist it.”
And she brayed. The hyena heard her from very far away and he was wondering from where the braying came.
For the second time she ate grass and said, “Let me bray.”
“The first bray was to notify the hyena that you are here," said the dog. "The second one will be to get him here. So don’t.”
“I can’t, I can’t, my stomach is full, so I must bray, or I can’t be happy.”
“All right. Go ahead.”
So she brayed for the second time.
The hyena came.
“So you are here! You shouldn’t be here.”
He killed her. The hyena ate as much as he could, then he saw the dog lying there.
“How about you? What are you doing here?”
He told him what they had planned and how they had run away from their masters.
“What's your job?”
“To look after my master’s cows.”
“So now,” the hyena says, “Why did you come?”
“He mistreated me, he doesn’t give me enough food. So I discussed it with the donkey. We thought a good master might take us, so we came this way.”
“So look after the rest of the meat while I am away.”
When the hyena roamed around and came back, he gave him what he had kept for him, but the heart wasn’t there.
“Where is the heart?”
“Oh sir, she has noTraditionally, the heart is thought to be the seat of a person's intelligence. heart! Since she was born she didn’t have a heart, she was so weak and foolish. If she had had a heart, she wouldn’t have brayed.”
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