a great hole had been torn through the fence of thorns. He ran into the field and cried out as he saw the damage that had been done to the plants – where there had been rows of corn there were now only flattened stalks and scattered leaves.
This boy’s father wept when he saw what had happened.
“Now we shall have no food,” he said, picking up the broken stalk of the tallest plant. “We shall be hungry this year.”
That afternoon they rebuilt the fence, hoping that it would stop the creature from visiting their fields that night. The next morning, though, the creature had been again, making a large hole in the fence of thorns and eating up more plants than before. Everybody in the village wept that day.
* * *
In another part of that chief’s lands there were other people who also felt sad. They had a great field of pumpkins, also protected by a fence of thorns. By night some creature of great cunning had burrowed underneath the fence and eaten many pumpkins. There were still some pumpkins left, but they knew that if the creature visited them again then all their pumpkins would be gone. For those people, who ate only pumpkins, this was a terrible thing to happen.
When they heard of the misfortune of the people who lived by the river, the pumpkin people walked across to the houses by the river and held a meeting.
“We have lost almost all our corn,” said the river people. “A great creature pushed through our fence of thorns as if it were nothing.”
The pumpkin people nodded and said: “That creature must be an elephant. Only an elephant could do that.”
Then they told the river people what had happened to their field of pumpkins and the river people nodded their heads and said: “That must be a hyena. Only a hyena would have the cunning to dig his way under a fence of thorns.”
There were some animals who heard the people talking in this way. They heard the sad voices of the men and saw the place where the tears had fallen on the ground. These animals, who had kind hearts, were saddened and they went off into the bush and told the other animals about what had happened. Even some birds heard the story and began to sing sad songs about it.
Of course it was not long before the elephant and the hyena heard what was being said about them. All the other animals now said that they were wicked and that they should not have caused so much sadness to the growers of the crops. The elephant felt ashamed when he realized what the other animals were saying about him and so he went to see the hyena.
“Everybody is calling us evil,” he said. “They shake their heads when they mention our names and say that there is enough food for everybody without our stealing the food of other people.”
The hyena felt ashamed too and he lowered his head to the ground and howled through his yellow teeth.
“I do not like to think of my name being so bad,” he said to the elephant. “Let’s go to the chief and ask him to change our names.”
The elephant thought that this was a good idea. Once he was no longer called an elephant, then he would be able to hold his head up again among the other animals.
“We shall set off early tomorrow morning,” he said to the hyena. “It is a long way to that chief’s house and we shall need all day to travel.”
* * *
The next morning the two friends set off just as the first light of the sun came over the top of the hills. They walked through the bush all morning and stopped only for a short time at midday. Throughout the afternoon they walked, following the path that led to the chief’s village, watching the sun go slowly down the sky. At last, just as the sun sank and the first of the stars began to glimmer above them, they saw the fires of the chief’s village.
The chief’s messenger welcomed them at the entrance to the village. He had heard of the bad name of the elephant and the hyena, but because they were visitors to the chief he did not show his feelings about them.
“We have come to have our names changed,” explained the hyena, his red eyes glowing in the darkness.
The chief’s messenger listened politely and then said: “I’m sorry,