Uncle Lion

Providing the circumstance from which the phrase “Taking the Lion’s Share” has been derived. Inferentially all other accounts are inaccurate.

Always when the lion went out hunting he took Kanja, the jackal, with him, for Kanja was a much better hunter than he.

But whenever the jackal had killed the game, he would say, “That is mine, Uncle Lion!” Then the lion would look at him with such an angry glare that Kanja would contradict himself at once, and say, “No, it is yours, of course!” Then Uncle Lion would eat it up, and Kanja would go hungry.

“You see, I only take the lion’s share,” Uncle Lion would explain.

“Yes, I have noticed it,” replied the jackal.

“What is your idea of the lion’s share?” asked the lion, with one eye on Kanja.

“Everything, Uncle Lion,” answered poor Kanja.

“Very well. You shall hunt with me again to-morrow,” said the lion approvingly.

When the next day came, however, Kanja avoided Uncle Lion, and went off to hunt on his own account.

After a while he met a friend of his, the leopard, flying across the plains as though a dozen hunters were after him.

“What seems to be the matter?” asked the jackal.

“I am really in a hurry,” replied the leopard. “Don’t stop me. There is a terrible beast looking out of the door of a hut, a little way back! It has great horns and is four times as big as you. I must be going.”

“But wait a minute!” said the jackal, and caught hold of the leopard, and insisted on hearing more about the creature which had frightened him.

In a minute he began to laugh. “Why, it is only a ram!” he cried. “He can’t do you any harm. We will go and catch him for dinner. I am almost starved.”

Kanja found it rather hard work to persuade him, but at last, when the leopard heard how badly the lion had treated his friend the day before, he agreed to go with him.

“But you must tie me to you,” said the leopard, with his teeth chattering. “I shall be sure to run when I see him.”

So Kanja fastened a leather thong around both their bodies, and dragged him along at a great rate. “Don’t let Uncle Lion catch us,” he whispered, looking from side to side. “If he took the lion’s share this time, I should die of hunger.”

When the ram saw them coming, he was more frightened than the leopard had been, so he ran back to the hut and told his wife.

“I don’t know what we are going to do,” he cried. “Kanja and his friend the leopard are coming to devour us!”

“Oh, that’s nonsense!” answered his wife. “Here take the child and go out to meet them.” Then she gave him their little kid, and told him to pinch it and make it cry.

“But I don’t understand,” said her husband, who was really very stupid.

“Do just as I tell you,” said his wife. “You must shout in a terrible tone, ‘Just in time! Just in time! My child is crying for food!’ Then you’ll see what will happen!”

When the leopard saw the ram, with his terrible horns coming towards them, he would have run away there and then if the jackal had not pulled him forward. Just then the ram gave his child a pinch, and the little kid began to cry.

“I am glad to see you, Kanja,” he cried. “You have brought the leopard just in time. My child is crying for food.”

“This is no place for me!” cried the leopard. “Let us be off.” And so they both tugged at the leather thong, Kanja determined to go on, and the leopard to go back.

But the leopard was much the stronger, and in a minute or two he was dragging the jackal along at a terrible pace. They rushed on and on, until they were out of sight of the ram, and then Kanja fell down exhausted. He was too faint with hunger to go any farther, but the leopard, who could not get over his fright, unfastened the thong and went on.

After a while, a wagon loaded with fish came past, and as it was going very slowly, the jackal tried to jump into it from behind.

“Even fish is better than nothing,” he said to himself, but he was too weak to manage it, and the wagon passed along.

But there was another following it at a little distance, and this time Kanja stretched himself in front of it as though he were dead.

“What is this?” said the driver, when he saw the jackal stretched out in the road. “His skin will make a nice cloak for my daughter.”

So the driver picked him up and threw him into the wagon, which was exactly what Kanja wanted. He had no idea of being made into a cloak for the driver’s daughter, but he did wish to be near the fish.

When Kanja had satisfied his hunger, he began to throw the fish out into the road, one by one. The daylight failed and the moon rose, but he was still busy with this, until the fishes lay like a silver streak as far along the track as he could see.

At last he jumped out of the wagon. “Four hundred!” he cried. “One for every day in the year, and thirty-five over. Now I must carry them to a place where Uncle Lion won’t find them.”

But while he was collecting them, a hyena came up and ate as many as she wanted without asking his permission.

“Here, you! Leave my fish alone!” cried Kanja angrily.

“They are no more your fish than mine,” replied the hyena. “Your fish, indeed! Why they have fallen out of the wagon.”

Kanja was too much annoyed to speak, so he went on gathering up the fish, and thinking of a way to punish her.

“There is another wagon coming,” he said at last. “Lie down in the road, and you will get as many fish as I did.”

The hyena opened her eyes. “Really?” she asked.

“Really. But you must keep perfectly still. Pretend to be dead.”

The fur of a hyena is not soft and silky like that of a jackal, so when the driver saw her stretched out in front of the wagon, he kicked her out of the way.

“Great, ugly thing!” he said. “What is it doing here?” Then he looked around for a stick to beat her with, and as she moved a little he cried out, “Oh, she’s not dead at all. Get up, you stupid, and be off!”

After the wagon had gone on, the hyena limped away to tell Kanja what had happened, “There was no fish,” she said, “and I am beaten to a jelly.”

“You have probably made some mistake,” said the jackal politely. “Are you sure you laid perfectly still?” he asked, “and right in the middle of the track?”

“I lay perfectly still in the middle of the track,” replied the hyena.

“Then it must be that the driver didn’t think you handsome enough to make a cloak. That’s it, dear friend. Your want of beauty is your misfortune and not your fault,” said Kanja in a sympathetic tone.

“It certainly is a great misfortune to be plain,” sighed the hyena, with tears in her eyes.

“But it is a still greater one to be stupid!” added Kanja, as he ran off with another fish in his mouth.

“I wonder what he meant?” said the hyena to herself.