Ethiopian Folktales

Narrated by Osman Abdulahi Ahmed

Once there was a lion, a hyena, a fox and the other animals. When they were going in the forest, they were hungry but they saw a very fat camel. So the lion, being the king of the animals, jumped on the camel and killed it in the neck. We know that lions don’t like to eat the meat. They suck the blood away from the neck. So when he sucked the blood, the rest of the dead camel lay on the ground.

So the lion went to the others and said, “Let’s share it.”

Then the hyena said, “I’ll divide it. Let’s divide it into two equal parts. One half should be for the lion and the other half for all the other animals.”

Then the lion was angry and gave him a slap on the face and killed him. All the other animals were shocked.

So then the lion called the fox and said, “You divide it.”

So the fox thought for a long time. He didn’t want to get a slam like the hyena.

So he said, “Take it all. Take the whole camel.”

So the lion was very happy.

“Who told you how to divide it?” he said. “You divided it very well.”

The fox said, “The slam you gave to the hyena taught me how to divide it.”

All the other animals were angry.

“You are stupid, you are nothing. Why did you give it all to the lion?”

He said, “You are stupid. If I had given any to us I would be dead like the hyena.”