Ethiopian Folktales

Narrated by Yusuf Adem Mandre

In the old days the hyena and the fox lived together. One day they quarrelled, so they went to the monkey and asked her to judge the quarrel.

“The fox has called me a thief,” said the hyena.

The fox tried to give the monkey a present to bribe her.

The monkey said, “Before you start presenting your cases, you have to have someone to pay bail for you.”

The hyena said, “I want my guarantor to be the fox,” and the fox said he wanted the hyena.

So the monkey looked at them thoughtfully and said, “You are both wrong because since you have chosen each other to be guarantor I see no reason to judge you. You have pretended that you fought over something when in fact there’s no quarrel between you. If it was another judge presiding over this case, he would have charged you a lot of money for your foolishness. But because I am a close friend of you both, I will only charge you five birr^{Birr is the main unit of currency in Ethiopia.} each.”