Reading Notes: South African Folktales, Part B

In the story "Jackal, Dove, and Heron," Dove lives on top of a rock. Jackal asks Dove for one of her children, and she says no. Jackal says he will fly up if she does not give him one of her little ones. She throws one down, and Jackal returns day after day to take more of Dove's children. Heron sees that Dove is sad and asks her what is wrong. She tells Heron than she must give Jackal her children or else he will fly up and take them. Heron calls Dove foolish and tells her that Jackal cannot fly. When Jackal returns the next day and asks Dove to throw one of her little ones down to him, she tells him no and tells him that Heron has told her that Jackal cannot fly to take them. Jackal finds Heron at the water. Jackal asks Heron how he stands in different situations, and when Heron bends his neck down, Jackal hit him on the neck and broke it in the middle. This is why the Heron's neck is bent.

This story is almost entirely written in dialogue, and each line of dialogue is pretty short. Each sentence is separated as its own paragraph, which makes it easy to read.

In my retelling of this story, I would like to keep three characters on which the story focuses. It could be interesting to change which animals appear in the story or even change the main characters to humans.

Jackal from Magda Ehlers

Story source: South African Folk-Tales by James Honey (1910)

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