The Elephant’s Child

“The Elephant’s Child” is a Just-So Story about how the elephant got its long nose. Here’s the very very short version of the story:

A very curious elephant’s child (who only had a small nose, you see) was always asking questions: why does the giraffe have spots? Why does the zebra have stripes? And one day, the elephant’s child wanted to know what the crocodile liked to eat for dinner. (As you can imagine, this is not likely to end well…)

And so, the elephant’s child went down to the river to ask the crocodile what he liked for dinner (this is all against the advice of the Bi-coloured-Python-Rock-Snake and the Kolokolo Bird, who knew what the crocodile was up to.) The crocodile told the elephant’s child to come close and he would whisper the answer–and then he grabbed the elephant’s nose and pulled so hard that the nose got longer and longer! The elephant’s child managed to get free, but his nose stayed long, and ever since then all elephants have long, useful noses. (Bet you didn’t see that coming!)