All Stories
Browse our complete collection of folk tales, Panchatantra stories, and moral stories from around the world.
African Folk Tales
Ages 6-8
Jackal And Monkey
A captive jackal escapes a Cape farmer's wip snare by tricking a gloating monkey into taking his place - a dark South African trickster tale from the Khoikhoi jackal cycle, retold from James A. Honey's South-African Folk-Tales (1910).
African Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
Lion And Jackal
Lion and Jackal is a southern African folk tale from James A. Honey's South-African Folk-Tales (1910): a lion and a jackal agree to hunt on shares, the jackal hoards the meat, and the cheated, prideful lion is destroyed by his own greed.
African Folk Tales
Ages 6-8
Lion Who Thought Himself Wiser Than His Mother
A Khoikhoi animal fable from the Cape of southern Africa, recorded in James A. Honey's South-African Folk-Tales (1910): a proud young lion ignores his mother's threefold warning about Man, his white dogs and his pinching weapons — and dies in the very ambush he set at Aroxaams.
African Folk Tales
All Ages
Lion Who Took A Woman’s Shape
A chilling Khoikhoi folk tale from Great Namaqualand: a lion devours a woman, pulls on her skin, and walks into her family's kraal disguised as their daughter — until the cattle, a frightened child, and a single coarse hair betray him.
African Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
Lion’s Share
Lion's Share is a Khoikhoi (Khoekhoe/Nama) folk tale of the South African Cape, from the jackal trickster cycle first printed in W.H.I. Bleek's Reynard the Fox in South Africa (1864). Lion and Jackal hunt as partners, and the cunning jackal outwits the powerful lion meal by meal.
African Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
Story Of Lion And Little Jackal
A string of clever escapes from southern African oral tradition: the small black-backed jackal outwits the mighty lion again and again, proving that wit, not muscle, rules the veld.
African Folk Tales
Ages 9-12
The Dance For Water Or Rabbit’s Triumph
A Khoikhoi trickster tale from the Cape of Good Hope: during a drought the animals dance water out of a dry riverbed, and the rabbit who scorned the work is trapped on a pitch-covered tortoise, then escapes by reverse psychology - an African root of the Tar-Baby tale.
African Folk Tales
Ages 6-8
The Hunt Of Lion And Jackal
A Khoikhoi trickster tale from the Cape of Good Hope: the jackal cheats his hunting partner the lion out of an eland's fat with a false blood-trail, talks his way out of being caught, and escapes scot-free with his family.
African Folk Tales
Ages 6-8
The Judgment Of Baboon
A mouse tears the tailor's cloak, and when every creature blames the next, Baboon the judge turns the chain of excuses into a chain of punishment - a Khoikhoi tale from Namaqualand explaining why the cat hunts the mouse and the baboon walks on all fours.
African Folk Tales
All Ages
The Lion And Jackal
A Khoikhoi trickster tale of the Cape: Lion and Jackal hunt on shares, but Jackal cheats Lion's family of the winter meat and, cornered at last on a krantz, destroys the great beast with a red-hot stone disguised as a ball of fat.
African Folk Tales
Ages 6-8
The Lion, The Jackal, And The Man
The Khoikhoi folk tale of a boastful lion whom a clever jackal humbles by leading him to meet a man — and the man, armed with dogs, fire and steel, proves the strongest creature of all.
African Folk Tales
Ages 6-8
The Lioness And The Ostrich
The Lioness and the Ostrich is a Khoikhoi folk tale of southern Africa from Bleek's Reynard the Fox in South Africa (1864) and Honey's South-African Folk-Tales (1910). A lioness accepts an ostrich as her equal, then lets her cubs' flattering scorn break that bond - and dies of it.