(The original, in the Hottentot language, is in Sir G. Grey’s
Library, G. Krönlein’s Manuscript, pp. 13, 14.)
The Jackal, it is said, came once to the Dove, who lived on the top of
a rock, and said, “Give me one of your little children.” The Dove
answered: “I shall not do anything of the kind.” The Jackal said, “Give
it me at once! Otherwise, I shall fly up to you.” Then she threw one
down to him.
He came back another day, and demanded another little child, and she
gave it to him. After the Jackal had gone, the Heron came, and asked,
“Dove, why do you cry?” The dove answered him: “The Jackal has taken
away my little children; it is for this that I cry.” He asked her, “In
what manner can he take them?” She answered him: “When he asked me I
refused him; but when he said, ‘I shall at once fly up, therefore give
it me,’ I threw it down to him.” The Heron said, “Are you such a fool
as to give your children to the Jackals, who cannot fly?” Then, with
the admonition to give no more, he went away.
The Jackal came again, and said, “Dove, give me a little child.” The
Dove refused, and told him that the Heron had told her that he could
not fly up. The Jackal said, “I shall catch him.”
So when the Heron came to the banks of the water, the Jackal asked him:
“Brother Heron, when the wind comes from this side, how will you
stand?” He turned his neck towards him and said, “I stand thus, bending
my neck on one side.” The Jackal asked him again, “When a storm comes
and when it rains, how do you stand?” He said to him: “I stand thus,
indeed, bending my neck down.”
Then the Jackal beat him on his neck, and broke his neck in the middle.
Since that day the Heron’s neck is bent.