Reading Notes: The Monkey's Fiddle, Reading A

This week, I read an African tale "The Monkey's Fiddle."

Here is a vervet monkey. Photo from Wikipedia.

This Monkey lived in South Africa. One day, hunger forced Monkey to leave his land and travel elsewhere in search of food. He sought shelter with his uncle, Orang Outang, who lived in a different area. Monkey's uncle gave him two gifts: a fiddle and a bow and arrow. The bow and arrow was for food, and the fiddle was to force 'anything to dance.'

Monkey ran into a Wolf first. The Wolf was also in search of food, and had his eye on a deer. Monkey  and Wolf worked together to capture and share the deer for a meal. The Wolf had put in lots of effort to capture the deer with no luck - yet, the Monkey just used the bow and arrow and successfully captured the deer. The Wolf was jealous of Monkey's weapon, and he begged Monkey for the bow and arrow. They argued for awhile, and as a Jackal came by, the Wolf claimed that Monkey stole the weapon from him. The Jackal didn't want to settle the fight, so he invited his friends Lion, Tiger, and other animals to decide what to do. The Lion, Tiger and Jackal took the weapon while decisions were being made about who it will go to, and these animals were using it in the meantime to capture food. 

The Lion, Tiger and Jackal were the head of court and listened to both sides. The Monkey had weak evidence, and the Jackal ended up testifying against him so that he could hopefully get to keep the weapon. As he was losing, the Monkey remembered the other gift his uncle gave him. He asked if he could play the fiddle one last time before being prosecuted for stealing what was rightfully his.

Monkey made every animal in the court spontaneously dance by playing his tunes. People danced until they passed out, and the Lion was so fatigued that he offered the Monkey his whole kingdom if he'd stop making him dance. Monkey denied, asking only for his weapon. He received the weapon and scared the others so much that they dispersed around the world, afraid they'd have to dance so much again.



After reading this story, I wondered how fun it could be to have a different object than the fiddle that silences the others in court. Additionally, what if the fiddle didn't work? Who would've ended up with the bow and arrow?

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