Fairy Tale Fridays- The Monkey's Fiddle

For this weeks tale I looked into South African tales. I chose The Monkey's Fiddle. This one was a interesting one where deceit is he main theme. In Monkey's homeland there is a famine so he goes to live with his uncle Orang-Outan. He works for his uncle till he finds out there is no longer a famine in his home so he decides to head back home. Before he leaves his uncle gives him a bow and arrow that will kill anything he desired and a fiddle that when played others would dance till he stops playing. Monkey comes across Cousin Wolf who grows jealous and accuses Monkey of stealing the bow and arrow from him. They go before the court of the Lion where it is decided Monkey is guilty. Monkey is given a final request and he asks to play his fiddle. He plays and plays while the animals and and dance till some collapse with exhaustion with their feet still moving. He gets Wolf to admit he stole the bow and arrow and gets  Lion to agree  to renounce his guilty sentence.

I enjoyed this tale. Not as much as some of the others I read but it was still enjoyable. I don't know that there is necessarily a moral to the story. Perhaps liars never win?  It still was nice to read one where animals are the feature of it. I do like that you can very much tell that it is an African tale. There is no great violence (other than the death of a deer). So all in all it is a good non-scary tale for children. I would give this tale 3 out of 5 stars