and in an African tale, [9] we find how it was the hyaena became
tailless and earless. Now, the tailless condition both of the bear
and the hyaena could scarcely fail to attract attention in a race of
hunters, and we might expect that popular tradition would attempt to
account for both, but how are we to explain the fact, that both
Norseman and African account for it in the same way--that both owe
their loss to the superior cunning of another animal. In Europe the
fox bears away the palm for wit from all other animals, so he it is
that persuades the bear in the Norse Tales to sit with his tail in a
hole in the ice till it is fast frozen in, and snaps short off when
he tries to tug it out. In Bornou, in the heart of Africa, it is the
weasel who is the wisest of beasts, and who, having got some meat in
common with the hyaena, put it into a hole, and said:

'Behold two men came out of the forest, took the meat, and put it
into a hole: stop, I will go into the hole, and then thou mayst
stretch out thy tail to me, and I will tie the meat to thy tail for
thee to draw it out'. So the weasel went into the hole, the hyaena
stretched its tail out to it, but the weasel took the hyaena's
tail, fastened a stick, and tied the hyaena's tail to the stick,
and then said to the hyaena 'I have tied the meat to thy tail;
draw, and pull it out'. The hyaena was a fool, it did not know the
weasel surpassed it in subtlety; it thought the meat was tied; but
when it tried to draw out its tail, it was fast. When the weasel
said again to it 'Pull', it pulled, but could not draw it out; so
it became vexed, and on pulling with force, its tail broke. The
tail being torn out, the weasel was no more seen by the hyaena: the
weasel was hidden in the hole with its meat, and the hyaena saw it
not. [_Kanuri Proverbs_, p. 167.]