Extrait du livre Le Lion qui ne savait pas chasser / Anglais
Le lion qui ne savait pas chasser (mais qui devint roi) de Jean-Sébastien Blanck et Jonathan Bousmar Alzabane éditions
The lion that did not know how to hunt (but became king)
Do you know how Man got the idea of crowning kings? You don’t? Well, the idea came from a very clever monkey a long, long time ago. Let me tell you the story...
It happened in Africa, at the time of the earliest civilizations, when towns were no more than a few huts nestled together and men lived in the heart of the savannah.
There was a lion living there among his own kind who was very peculiar because the poor thing did not know how to hunt! His parents had tried everything they could think of to teach him about hunting, but it was all in vain! Every time he tried, our poor lion stumbled, fell and bumped into the other lions and was then made fun of by all the animals that should have been frightened of him. Gazelles, antelopes and zebras, all laughed loudly at the sight of this big clumsy cat.
Later on, his siblings also tried to teach him how to hunt. But this oaf never managed to catch a single animal. The monkeys and birds of the savannah said that, on top of that, this lion was not even able to tell the difference between a hare and a hyena, due to his bad eyesight. And, in those days, lions did not yet wear glasses.
As the years went on, eventually, everyone in his clan considered him to be a burden, a useless mouth to feed, and even as the shame of the lion clan. With him around, the other animals would not fear them anymore. - Go away! said the other lions one day. You can’t stay with us if you can’t do anything right! You make us look ridiculous in front of our prey!
Rejected by his clan and humiliated by other animals, the poor lion roamed around alone for months. He was seen in swamps, trying to hunt what he could find there, but, again, he made a fool of himself: frogs and crocodiles fell over laughing.
Faced with starvation, the poor animal had to feed on insects and berries. He became terribly thin and became covered with fleas and other parasites.
Then, one day, a man found the unfortunate lion, exhausted and starving. His name was Sebemba. He was an animal tamer and lived in a nearby village. He was so touched by the lion’s sorry state that he decided to take the poor animal home with him.
