"Where'd you get that tail?" Rabbit asked.
"God gave it to me," said Squirrel.
So Rabbit went and asked God for a bushy tail.
God agreed, and he gave Rabbit a box. "Your tail's in here, but ride twelve miles first before you open it."
Seeing that big box made Rabbit happy. He put it on his wagon and rode twelve miles. Then another mile, just to be sure.
Then Rabbit opened the box and out jumped two big old hound-dogs. They started chasing Rabbit, and he barely escaped!
Hounds still chase Rabbit even now.
Inspired by: Every Tongue Got to Confess, stories collected by Zora Neale Hurston (from a manuscript thought lost, but now found and published).
Notes: This story is "De Rabbit Wants Uh Tail" which starts on p. 247. Hurston heard the story from James Presley. The most distinctive part of this story is that the quest is because Rabbit wants a bushy tail like Squirrel's tail. God sends Rabbit to get rattlesnake teeth (as usual, Rabbit fools him by getting snake to show his length), and then deer eye-water (as usual, Rabbit tricks deer with a jumping contest so that deer gets stuck). Rabbit completes these tasks, and then God gives him the box, telling him the tail is inside. I left out the quest tasks and just focused on the part about the tail. In some versions, the hounds jump off and bite off Rabbit's tail, so the story explains why he has a short tail; that's the verion reported, for example, in Folk Culture on St. Helena Island, South Carolina, "Rabbit Seeks a Wife."
Inspired by: Every Tongue Got to Confess, stories collected by Zora Neale Hurston (from a manuscript thought lost, but now found and published).
Notes: This story is "De Rabbit Wants Uh Tail" which starts on p. 247. Hurston heard the story from James Presley. The most distinctive part of this story is that the quest is because Rabbit wants a bushy tail like Squirrel's tail. God sends Rabbit to get rattlesnake teeth (as usual, Rabbit fools him by getting snake to show his length), and then deer eye-water (as usual, Rabbit tricks deer with a jumping contest so that deer gets stuck). Rabbit completes these tasks, and then God gives him the box, telling him the tail is inside. I left out the quest tasks and just focused on the part about the tail. In some versions, the hounds jump off and bite off Rabbit's tail, so the story explains why he has a short tail; that's the verion reported, for example, in Folk Culture on St. Helena Island, South Carolina, "Rabbit Seeks a Wife."
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