Ethiopian Folktales

Narrated by Abebe Kebede

Once upon a time a fox was travelling along the road and he was very hungry, he had nothing to eat. He looked left and right and his mouth was looking dry, and he was almost starving, but there was nothing at all to eat outside.

Then suddenly up in the skies he saw a raven flying with a big hunk of meat in his mouth. And the fox decided that he had to eat that meat.

“Hi there Raven! Hi there!” he called out.

The raven just turned his ears, listening, and kept quiet.

“Raven, Raven I was looking for you,” the fox called again.

Still the raven kept quiet.

“You know what happened today,” the fox said. “All the animals got together. They said that they wanted a lord, and they wanted a king. So they thought about people and all of them got together and they chose all different sorts of animals and birds. So everybody nominated somebody else, but eventually they all decided on you. They said that because you are so black you are really beautiful. And the white patch on the top of your head is ideal for a crown. So everybody was happy, and they almost chose unanimously. But then there was one doubt. People said that maybe his voice is not melodious enough, maybe his voice is not sweet enough for a lord, so they thought that you couldn’t be the lord. But since people weren’t sure, they sent me as a messenger to investigate and examine whether you had a sweet voice or not. And actually I was on my way to your place, but by coincidence we have met on the road. Therefore I would like to hear what sort of a voice you have.”

Now the crow was obviously overjoyed that he was chosen as the leader and the lord of all the animals. Therefore he wanted to show the fox how sweet a voice he had, and he began croaking, “Aark! Aark! Aark!”

And as he opened his mouth and began croaking, the big piece of meat fell from his mouth, down to the ground. The fox quickly grabbed it up and went running away.

And he called back, “You dirty black devil! Who the hell would choose you to be the lord? In fact, leave alone lord, people wouldn’t want you to be their slave.” And he ran away.