Cunning Rabbit Becomes A King

This tale has been adapted from the original for readability:

All the animals and Cunnie Rabbit met in one place. The cattle pulled off their horns and laid them on the ground, each one taking off their own.

Now, in those days, the story says the cattle could do anything. They could pull their horns off, and put them back on again. When all the horns were on the ground, they made an announcement.

“Whoever can blow every one of these horns, one after another, without stopping, we’ll make king.”

Spider stepped forward first. He blew for a long time, but in the end he grew tired and had to stop.

Then Elephant stood up. “I’m big,” he said, “I’ll blow them all.”

Cunnie Rabbit shook his head. “You’re having a laugh. Spider’s far cleverer than you, and he couldn’t finish them. You think you can?”

Elephant ignored him and started straight away. He blew and blew, and managed a good number of horns, but he couldn’t keep going. He ran out of breath and stopped.

After that, the other animals tried, one by one, and none of them managed it.

At last Cunnie Rabbit stood up and began to blow. But Cunnie Rabbit was sly. When he got tired and wanted a rest, he played a trick.

He paused, cocked his head, and listened, as if he’d heard something coming. Then he let out a huge shout.

The other animals thought trouble was on its way. They leapt to their feet and shouted too, louder and louder, until the ground seemed to shake. In all that noise, nobody noticed Cunnie Rabbit had stopped blowing.

When they finally went quiet, Cunnie Rabbit calmly put the horn back to his mouth and carried on.

He did the same thing again when he needed another rest, and then again a third time. Each time, the shouting gave him a moment to recover.

And that’s how Cunnie Rabbit managed to blow every single horn without “stopping”, at least not in a way the others spotted. So the animals made him king.