How the Heron got a Bend in its Neck
How the Heron got a Bend in its Neck, a San folktale
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One day the jackal was hunting among some rocks, when he spied a dove perched above him. The ledge on which the dove rested on, however, was quite out of reach.
"Little dove," called the jackal, "I'm hungry. Throw down one of your children." "Indeed I will not," said the dove. "Then I will fly up to you myself, and eat you too," replied the jackal.
At this threat, the foolish dove grew frightened, and threw down one of the little squabs, and the jackal ran off with it.
The next day, the jackal threatened the dove with the same fate, and another baby bird went down his throat. The poor mother dove wept bitterly.
The heron, passing by, heard her crying. "Why do you weep?," she asked. "I weep for my poor babies," replied the dove. "If I do not give them to the jackal he will fly up here and devour me too."
"You foolish bird!," retorted the heron. "How can he fly up to you when he has no wings? You must not give in to his silly threats."
So, the next day when the jackal returned, the dove refused to part with another baby. "The heron has told me that you cannot fly after all," she said.
"That nosy heron," muttered the jackal, trotting off, "I will pay her back for her wagging tongue."
It wasn't long before the jackal found the heron wading in a pond, looking for frogs. She looked down her beak at him.
"What a long neck you have," said the jackal, cloyingly. "What happens when the wind blows? Does it not break in half?"
"No, I lower it a little," said the heron, demonstrating to the attentive jackal.
"And when the wind blows harder? What then?" jackal remarked. "Then I lower it a little more," heron said, doing just that. "And when it blows a real gale?," jackal asked yet again.
"I lower it right down to here," replied the self-absorbed bird, lowering her head right down to the pond's bank.
Then the jackal, grinning with glee, leaped into the air and landed on the heron's neck with such force, that it broke! And from that day to this, the heron has a bend in her neck.
(adapted, via Gateway Africa)
(images via Carli Wolfaardt and Burning Tree Books)