The Man Who Could Not Keep Secrets

This tale has been adapted from the original for readability:

A hunter had shot elephants many times, and he had killed one before. But Elephant was a creature of tricks, able to change into anything at all, a person, an animal, whatever he pleased. One day Elephant turned himself into a beautiful young woman and went to the hunter’s home. When the hunter saw her, he hurried his wife away and told her to go into the kitchen and cook, because he did not want his wife listening to what he and the visitor might say.

When they were alone, the young woman asked, “How do you manage to kill Elephant?”

The hunter, pleased with himself, said, “You see that gun, and that bow and arrow in the corner? I take them, I load them, and when I see Elephant I shoot, and that’s that.”

“And if you do not get him?” she asked.

“Then I can turn into a dead tree,” he said, “so Elephant will not see me.”

“But what if Elephant smashes the dead tree?” she pressed.

“Then I can turn into an anthill,” he said.

“And if Elephant smashes the anthill as well?” she asked. “What will you do next?”

The hunter was just about to tell her the last thing he had left, when his wife, who had been listening from the corner, suddenly shouted, “Are you telling everything you know?”

At once the hunter stopped. He did not say the final secret.

The woman left, and as soon as she was out of sight she turned back into Elephant.

The next day the hunter set out to hunt again. In the bush he met the very same Elephant, standing and watching him. He raised his gun and fired, but he missed. Straight away he used his trick and turned into a dead tree, just as he had boasted he could. Elephant came over and smashed the dead tree to pieces. The hunter quickly turned into an anthill. Elephant smashed that too, scattering it across the ground.

Now the hunter had nothing left but the last escape he had never spoken aloud. In desperation he threw himself into the water and turned into something that could skim and race across the surface. He did get away from Elephant, but he was badly injured from the smashing and the blows. He was broken, and in pain, and he could hardly move. He did not come home for two days, and when his people went looking for him they found him at last, carried him back to the town, and from that time on he was never able to go hunting again before he died.

So when a stranger comes to you, do not pour out every secret you carry in your heart. You do not always know who you are speaking to, or what they may be hiding. And do not treat your wife badly, either, because if she had not cried out when she did, the hunter would have spoken the last secret, and Elephant would have killed him outright.