Lion’s Share

Lion and Jackal went hunting together, shooting with arrows. Lion shot first, but his arrow fell short. Jackal’s arrow hit the animal, and he cried out happily, “It’s hit!”

Lion turned his two great eyes on him. Jackal did not lose his nerve. “No, uncle,” he said, “I mean to say that you have hit it.”

They followed the wounded animal, and Jackal walked right past Lion’s fallen arrow without pointing it out. When they came to a place where the paths crossed, Jackal said, “Dear uncle, you are old and tired. Wait here.”

Then Jackal went off down the wrong track. He hit his own nose until it bled and, on his way back, let the drops fall on the ground like the trail of a wounded animal. “I couldn’t find anything,” he said, “but I came across a blood trail. You’d better go and look for yourself. Meanwhile I’ll try this other way.”

Jackal soon found the dead animal. He crawled right inside it and ate the best part. But his tail stuck out, and when Lion arrived he grabbed it, dragged Jackal out, and flung him on the ground. “You rascal!” he said.

Jackal jumped up at once, complaining about being treated so roughly. “What have I done now, dear uncle? I was only cutting out the best part.”

“Now let’s go and fetch our wives,” said Lion. But Jackal begged his dear uncle to stay where he was, since he was old. Jackal went off with two portions of meat, one for his own wife, and the better one, he said, for Lion’s wife.

When Jackal arrived with the meat, Lion’s children saw him, jumped up and down, and clapped their hands. “Here comes cousin with meat!” they cried. Grumbling, Jackal threw them the worst piece. “There, you brood of the big-eyed one!” he said.

Then he went to his own home and told his wife to pack up the house at once and move to where the dead animal lay. Lion’s wife wanted to do the same, but Jackal told her not to; Lion, he said, would come and fetch her himself.

When Jackal, his wife, and their children came near the kill, he ran into a thorn bush and scratched his face until it bled. Then he went to Lion. “Ah! What a wife you have!” he said. “Look how she scratched my face when I told her to come with us. You’ll have to fetch her yourself. I can’t bring her.” Lion went home in a fury.

“Quick,” said Jackal to his family, “let’s build a tower.” They piled stone on stone, stone on stone, stone on stone, and when it was high enough they carried everything to the top. When Jackal saw Lion coming back with his wife and children, he called down, “Uncle, while you were away we built a tower, so we can look out for game more easily.”

“All right,” said Lion, “but let me come up to you.”

“Of course, dear uncle. But how will you get up? We must let down a thong for you.”

Lion tied the thong around his body, and Jackal began pulling him up. When Lion was nearly at the top, Jackal cried, “My, uncle, how heavy you are!” Then, without Lion seeing, he cut the thong, and Lion crashed to the ground. Jackal started scolding his wife loudly and angrily. “Go and fetch me a new thong, wife,” he said—and then, quietly to her, “an old one.”

Lion tied himself to the new thong, and just as he neared the top a second time, Jackal cut it. Lion fell heavily to the bottom, groaning loudly, for this time he was badly hurt.

“No,” said Jackal, “this will never do. But you must at least come up high enough to get a mouthful.” Out loud he told his wife to get a good piece of meat ready, but under his breath he told her to heat a stone and cover it with fat. Then he hauled Lion up a third time, complaining about how heavy he was, and told him to open his mouth. Then he threw the hot stone down Lion’s throat.

Lion fell to the ground and lay there begging for water, while Jackal climbed down and ran away.

Where this tale comes from

“Lion’s Share” is one of several Lion-and-Jackal tales in James A. Honey’s South-African Folk-Tales (1910). It had appeared as No. 3, “The Lion’s Share,” in W. H. I. Bleek’s Reynard the Fox in South Africa (1864), where Bleek gives his source as a German manuscript in Sir George Grey’s library: H. C. Knudsen’s “Notes on the Hottentots.”

Bleek chose the title Reynard the Fox because the jackal of these Namaqua fables plays the part of Europe’s sly fox. The cut-rope and hot-stone tricks here also turn up in Honey’s “Lion and Jackal,” told around a cliff instead of a tower.

Read the original: Honey, South-African Folk-Tales — free ebook at Project Gutenberg

Suggested for older readers within ages 9–12 with an adult: includes self-inflicted bleeding, repeated falls and a burning stone forced down Lion’s throat.

Evidence can be manufactured

Jackal creates both the blood trail and the scratches he uses to accuse Lion’s wife. Later, his loud instructions say one thing while his whispers arrange the opposite. Readers see the fabrication, but Lion sees only a clue or hears only a promise. The opening also complicates the partnership: Lion’s glare makes Jackal surrender credit for his own successful shot.

Audit the clues

Choose the trail, scratches or rope. Record the explanation offered to Lion and the explanation known to the reader. What independent check could distinguish them?

Questions to ask

• How did Jackal take the credit away from himself so quickly at the start?
• What tricks did Jackal use to keep Lion away from the meat?
• Why do you think the source never punishes Jackal?

Related stories

• Lion and Jackal — the same rope-and-stone tricks at a cliff
• The Hunt Of Lion And Jackal — Jackal fools Lion with a false blood trail
• Crocodile’s Treason — Jackal is the only one who sees a betrayal coming