The Leopard and the Ram

A ram once decided to clear a patch of woodland and build himself a house. A leopard who lived nearby made up his mind to do exactly the same thing.

Without knowing it, they both picked the same spot. One day the ram came and worked on the clearing. After he had gone, the leopard arrived and was very surprised to find part of the job already done. All the same, he carried on from where the ram had stopped. Each of them was amazed every day at how much had been done while he was away, and each decided that the fairies must be helping him. He thanked them and went on working.

So it went on, the two of them taking turns at the building without ever seeing each other, until the house was finished to the satisfaction of both.

They both got ready to move into the new home, and to their great surprise they met. Each told his story, and after a friendly talk they agreed to live there together.

The leopard and the ram each had a son, and the two youngsters played together while their fathers were out hunting. The leopard was puzzled to see that every evening his friend the ram brought home just as much meat as he did. But he did not dare ask how the ram did it.

One day, before going out to hunt, the leopard asked his son to find out from young Ram, if he could, how his father caught and killed animals. So while they were playing, little Leopard asked how Father Ram, who had no claws or sharp teeth, managed to kill his prey. Young Ram would not say unless little Leopard promised to show him his own father’s way as well. Little Leopard agreed. So they took two big pieces of plantain stem and went into the woods.

First young Leopard set up one piece. Then, moving to the right, then to the left, bowing low and rising on his hind legs and peering at the stem just as his father did, he took aim, leapt at the stem, and tore it apart.

Then young Ram set up the other piece. Without wasting a moment, he backed away a little, took aim, and charged forward, butting the stem with his head and smashing it to bits. When they had finished, they swept the place clean and went home.

That evening the leopard heard all about the hunt from his son. The young one warned him that he must always be on his guard whenever he saw the ram step backward. The leopard remembered this and kept a close watch on the ram from then on.

Some time later it rained, and the floor of the house became very slippery. The leopard called the ram to come and eat with him as usual. On his way over, the ram slipped backward on the wet floor. The leopard saw it and thought the ram was about to kill him. Calling to his son to follow, he sprang over the wall of the house with all his strength and fled into the woods. The ram called him to come back, but he would not listen. Since then leopards have lived in the woods, and rams have stayed at home.

About this tale

“The Leopard and the Ram” is story XXVII in Barker and Sinclair’s West African Folk-Tales (1917). It ends with one of the book’s invented explanations of animal habits: leopards in the woods, rams at home with people. The talking, meat-hunting ram and this origin of animal habitats belong to fiction.

Sinclair drew the young leopard’s demonstration for the book, under the caption “Young Leopard sprang toward the Stem and tore it.” The illustration emphasizes the demonstration that later makes the leopard misread an accidental movement.

Read the original: The tale in West African Folk-Tales (Project Gutenberg)

Best for ages 6–8 — a tale of mistaken intentions and a broken friendship; use drawings or puppets to retell the hunting demonstrations.

Reading the story closely

The two adults begin with a generous misunderstanding: each credits fairies for the other’s labor. When they discover the truth, they choose to share. Later the leopard gains accurate information about the ram’s charge but applies it to the wrong situation, turning a slip into an imagined attack.

Compare those two mistakes. What new evidence allows the first to be corrected, and what does the leopard refuse to hear in the second? Draw the backward step twice, once as preparation to charge and once as an accidental slip. The movement is the same; the intention is different.

Questions to ask

• Why did the leopard and the ram each think the fairies were helping them?
• How did the two young animals show each other their fathers’ ways of hunting?
• Why did the leopard run away when the ram slipped?

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