Hyena had chased Rabbit to his house. "I'm going to eat you, Rabbit!" she yelped.
"Rabbit's not here," came a voice from inside the burrow.
"If you're not Rabbit, who are you?" Hyena asked.
"I am He-Who-Vomits-the-Blood-of-His-Victims!" shouted the voice angrily. "And how dare you disturb my sleep like this! Who are you?"
Hyena replied cautiously, "I am Hyena."
"Ah, I am glad you have come, Hyena! You're just in time. I ate a whole family of Hyenas for breakfast, and now I'll have Hyena for lunch!"
Hyena turned tail and ran, while Rabbit sat safely in his burrow, laughing.
[an Ila story from Zambia]
Inspired by: "Hare Scares Hyena" in The Ila-Speaking Peoples Of Northern Rhodesia, Volume 2 by Edwin Smith and Andrew Murray Dale, 1920.
Notes: You can read the original story online. The original doesn't give any narrative context for the confrontation, so I had to imagine that myself.
Gullible Hyena has fallen for one of the oldest tricks in the book where Rabbit pretends to be someone else to fool his foolish enemy!
ReplyDeleteAnd then laughs and laughs at how stupid they are haha
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