Monkey eats his own tail
Mozambican folktale
Horácio José Cossa
Once upon a time, the rabbit was a great friend of the monkey.
One day the rabbit said, "Let's go for a walk and look for something to eat."
The monkey agreed, but it was a trap for him!
They went to a field of maize and started to eat it.
But the clever rabbit had spoken to the owners of the farm, to catch the monkey and show him he was foolish.
The clever rabbit started shouting, "Robbers! Robbers! Your maize is all gone!"
And he jumped up and ran away.
Suddenly, the owners appeared and found the monkey trying to run away.
But he has a long tail and it was stopping him.
The owners followed him, shouting, "Stop! Stop! We saw you, you are the monkey."
But they caught him and started beating him.
He couldn't stand the pain so he said, "I was with my friend Rabbit. He is the one who invited me."
But the owners cut his tail off and told him, "Go and tell your friend that we cut off your tail!"
The rabbit took the monkey's tail to his house and cooked it to eat.
He invited the monkey for lunch.
At the end of the meal the rabbit asked the monkey if he knew what he had eaten.
The foolish monkey answered, "No, I don't!"
The rabbit told him that he had eaten his own tail and then ran away.
And from then on they became enemies!
You are free to download, copy, translate or adapt this story and use the illustrations as long as you attribute in the following way:
Monkey eats his own tail
Author - Mozambican folktale
Illustration - Horácio José Cossa
Language - English
Level - First sentences
© Mozambican Writers 2014
Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0
Source www.africanstorybook.org
