The Fox and the Rooster: 5 African Fables of Wit and Patience

It was once the case that the Fox and the Rooster maintained a semblance of amity. The Fox, it is true, was wont to dispatch chickens with regularity; yet he invariably spared the Rooster, owing to a certain apprehension inspired by the Rooster's formidable comb.

On a certain day, the Fox ventured to inquire, 'Pray, tell me, by what means dost thou sharpen that weapon which adorns thy head?'

The Rooster, seized with mirth, elucidated, 'My comb is but flesh; it is no weapon at all. It possesses no sharpness whatsoever.'

The Fox, joining in the merriment, confessed, 'I confess, I was once held captive by a fear of thy comb. Now, however, I apprehend that my trepidation was born of mere folly.'

Upon the subsequent encounter between the Fox and the Rooster, the former, acting with perfidy, launched an assault from the rear, thereby bringing about the Rooster's untimely demise.

Verily, the Rooster would have been better served had he maintained a judicious silence regarding the verity of his comb.

The populace, in their collective wisdom, elected to elevate a canine to the station of their sovereign.

Upon the day appointed for the coronation of the Dog, the citizenry assembled in great numbers, eager to partake in the festivities.

They presented forth the regalia of office: the crown, symbolising dominion; the sceptre, emblem of authority; the rings, tokens of fealty; and the royal robe, signifying majesty. A ;ne mat was unfurled, and upon it was placed a throne. The Dog then assumed his seat upon the throne, whilst drummers beat their instruments and musicians performed upon the marimbas.

Thereafter, preparations were made for the commencement of a grand feast. However, ere the victuals could be distributed, the Dog, in a moment of unseemly haste, sprang forth, seized a roasted fowl, and absconded into the undergrowth.

'Observe this spectacle!' exclaimed the assembled multitude. 'The Dog hath absconded with a roasted chicken. He is no monarch, but a mere pilferer!'

A swine and a hart, being companions upon a journey, did arrive at a divergence in the thoroughfare.

Quoth the swine, indicating a path traversing open fields, “Let us proceed in this direction.”

Nay, responded the hart, directing attention to a path winding through the forest, “That route prolongs our expedition unduly. Let us rather take this path, for it doth promise greater expedition!”

They engaged in protracted disputation, and, in the end, the two comrades did separate, the swine betaking himself to one route, and the hart to the other.

After a protracted peregrination, the swine did attain his appointed bourn.

The hart, however, had scarcely traversed half the distance when he was felled by a huntsman's shot and met his demise.

In bygone days, there existed a tortoise of unremarkable mien.

This tortoise, as fate would have it, chanced upon a series of stone steps ascending in a fashion hitherto unexperienced; the destination of these steps remained unknown to him, yet he harboured a resolute desire to mount them.

Steps, however, are structures ill-suited to the morphology of tortoises, and thus his endeavour was fraught with difficulty.

A full century elapsed ere he succeeded in surmounting the first step.

Then, upon the inaugural day of his one hundred and first year, the tortoise, in the throes of commencing his ascent of the second step, suffered a lamentable stumble, precipitating his descent to his original position.

'May Allah confound all impetuosity!' he declared with considerable vexation. 'I must needs proceed with augmented deliberation.'

In bygone days, there arose an arboreal specimen of such prodigious stature that it interposed itself betwixt the terrestrial sphere and the solar orb, thereby engendering a perpetual nocturnal ambiance, insomuch that the sun's resplendence was rendered incapable of penetrating the umbrageous canopy.

The proboscidean pachyderm, in its endeavour to extirpate the aforementioned arboreal entity, employed its trunk as a lever, alas, to no avail.

The leonine and pardine carnivores, deploying their dental and ungual armaments, essayed to dismember the sylvan behemoth. Diverse other fauna, through concerted tractive and propulsive efforts, supplemented by cranial impetuses, proved equally impotent in their attempts to fell the obdurate tree.

Subsequently, the Herpestidae, commonly denominated the Mongoose, made its advent. The assembled bestiary, seized by paroxysms of derisive mirth, owing to the creature's diminutive physique and apparent lack of puissant strength.

However, the Mongoose bore a tool of considerable efficacy, namely, a diminutive yet acutely honed axe. With relentless application, it cleaved and hewed at the arboreal base, persevering until the mighty tree succumbed to its efforts and crashed to the earth.

Thus, did the Mongoose restore the diurnal luminosity to the terrestrial domain.