How the Elephant Got His Trunk (An Origin Tale from Africa and India)

Long, long ago, in the days when animals still spoke the language of the world, the elephant looked very different from how we know it today. He had no trunk — only a big, bulbous nose, not much longer than a boot. His face was broad and flat, and he used his short nose to push food around rather clumsily.

Now, there was once a young elephant calf who was full of curiosity. From the moment he could speak, he had only one question after another:

“Why does the giraffe have such a long neck?”

“Why do crocodiles lie still in the river?”

“Why does the hippo snort when it dives?”

And so on, and so on — endlessly.

His family grew tired of his questions. They would tell him, “Hush, little one. Too many questions will lead you into trouble.”

But the little elephant was not afraid of trouble. He wanted to know.

One day, the young elephant asked the question that changed everything.

“What does the crocodile eat for dinner?”

No one would answer him. The monkey jumped away. The parrot flew off. Even the wise old baboon turned his back and said, “You will learn soon enough, young one. But you will not like the answer.”

This only made the elephant more curious.

So off he went, padding through the tall grass, past the thorny bushes, through the swamps, and finally to the edge of the great river.

There, lying like a floating log, was a long, green shape with two glinting eyes just above the water.

“Excuse me,” said the elephant calf politely. “Are you a crocodile?”

“I might be,” said the crocodile, sliding closer. “Why do you ask, little one?”

“I want to know what crocodiles eat for dinner,” said the elephant.

The crocodile smiled, showing his sharp white teeth. “Today, I shall eat... you!”

Before the elephant could run, the crocodile snapped his jaws on the elephant’s short nose and began to pull him into the water.

The elephant squealed and dug his feet into the mud. He pulled and pulled with all his strength. The crocodile tugged back, hard.

Back and forth, back and forth, until… stretch!

The elephant’s nose began to grow, longer and longer, pulled like hot sugar.

He yanked one final time, and the crocodile slipped and let go. The little elephant fell backward into the mud, with a nose now longer than anything he had ever seen!

At first, he was horrified. But soon, he realized he could pick fruit from high trees. He could squirt water over his back to cool off. He could even chase off flies with a simple flick of his mighty trunk.

He walked back home proudly. And when the other elephants saw what he could do, they too began to tug and stretch their noses — some with vines, others with tree bark — and in time, all elephants had long, powerful trunks.