A jackal was walking alongside a river, wondering where it would be safe to cross. The water was high and the current was very strong. Then suddenly the ground slipped out from under the jackal's feet and he fell into the water. The current carried him away, flipping him upside down, tossing him left and right, and when he finally stuck his head out from the water, gasping, he saw his tail in front of him. "This is surely the end of the world," he groaned, "when what should be last is first, and what should be first is last."
Inspired by: "The Jackal and the River" in Tashelhiyt Berber Folktales by Harry Stroomer, 2001.
Notes: You can
read the original story online. This is told as an Aesop's fable about a camel in the river (Perry 321); perhaps the camel suggests that it was one of the fables that entered the Aesopic corpus from northern Africa.
raging river
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