Ethiopian Folktales

Narrated by Metekia Libri

The monkey gave birth to a child in a tree and the leopard gave birth beneath the tree. As they started growing, both children played, the monkey in the tree and the leopard on the ground.

The leopard’s child called the monkey’s child and said, “Why can’t you come down here and play with me?”

“All right.”

So she came down from the tree and they played together like friends. The monkey’s child climbed the tree to her mother when dusk fell.

The monkey’s mother asked, “Where have you been?”

“A beautiful child like me asked me to come down from the tree and I played with her.”

And the leopard’s child was asked by her mother, “How did you pass your day?”

“A beautiful child lives up the tree and we played together. We had a nice time. She had white hair on her forehead.”

“Now where is she?” asks the leopard mother. “You say she’s gone home.”

“She went home to her mother,” replied the leopard child.

“Didn’t she tell you that she would come again?”

“Yes. In fact, she’s coming tomorrow and we’ll play together like today.”

“Well, didn’t you know that you were born by nature to live on her, to eat her? When she comes tomorrow, play some jokes with her, then bite her neck.”

“All right, mother. I will eat her tomorrow.”

The mother monkey said to her child, “Why did you go there and play with her? Is it not because they are enemies and they will kill you that I went to the trouble to give birth to you in a tree? I warn you, don’t ever go to her again. If she insists that you come down and play with her, tell her that you have been advised by your mother just like she has been advised by her mother.”

And on the morrow the leopard child invited the monkey child and she said what her mother had told her.

So she was saved.