The Story of the Great Flood

The animals were arguing with each other, so Lion called an assembly. The animals made speeches, accusing each other of this and that.
Elephant, meanwhile, trampled a Crawfish to death. The other Crawfishes got mad, but nobody listened to their complaint, except for Mud-Turtle and Spring-Lizard. All the other animals kept on making speeches.
So the Crawfishes and the Mud-Turtle and the Spring-Lizard bored holes in the ground till water came squirting out.
The water kept pouring forth, and more and more, rising higher and higher till all the animals drowned, just because the big animals disrespected the little ones.


Inspired byUncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings by Joel Chandler Harris: The Story of the Deluge.
Notes: This story is a distinctively African American variant on a traditional African story about the animals raising up water from underground; see Baer's notes here.




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