Why the hyena laughs

Writer’s note: Starting in January, I was given a 4th/5th Language Arts small group. One of my assignments was to have the students write their own myth. Because most of them did not enjoy writing, I thought it would be encouraging to them if I wrote one too. This was a difficult process, for the group, but they actually turned out quite nice. I printed the stories out and we made books out of construction paper, complete with illustrations. In the end, they were very proud of what they had accomplished and enjoyed sharing their stories. Here is mine….

Once upon a time the whole earth was filled with jungles. There were tall trees and leafy plants. There were vines growing all around and grass on the ground. Everywhere you looked, it was dark and green and lush. Almost all of the animals were very happy, except for the spotted hyena. The hyena hated living in the jungle. First of all, she didn’t blend in. The jungle is all shades of green and the hyena is brown with spots. She hated playing games with the snakes and lizards because she always stuck out no matter how hard she tried to hide. The hyena also hated how wet it got. The jungle was SO rainy! Just when she got dried off, it started up again. Feeling very sad, she tried to talk to the panther about it, but he just smiled and slinked off to join his friends. Poor hyena!

While she was sitting there, wet and unhappy, the water goddess came walking by. “Why are you so sad, little hyena? she asked. “Oh water goddess, I’m always so wet in the jungle and I don’t blend in, so I never win at hide and go seek. Is there anywhere I go to be dry?” The water goddess started laughing. “Silly hyena! Everyone on earth loves my rain. It makes the jungle such a nice, beautiful place to live. Now run along and play with your friends. How can you be unhappy, when you are so blessed to have me around?”

The hyena slowly walked away, sadder than ever. But as she walked, she started getting mad. Why should the water goddess get to make rain everywhere on the land? That led her to plot revenge and she knew just where to start. Now, the sun god was a very vain character. He thought that he was the one who made the earth a nice place to live. The hyena decided that in order to get what she wanted, she was going to have to trick the sun god into helping her.

When the hyena found the sun god, he was fast asleep under a tree. She didn’t dare wake him up, as he had quite a terrible temper. So instead, she called to the water goddess…..”Water goddess, I bet you can’t get me wet!” The water goddess ran over and started chasing the hyena. The hyena zig zagged around the jungle repeatedly running past the place where the sun god was sleeping. When she heard a loud yell, she knew that her plan had started to work. “Water Goddess, why are you raining on me while I sleep?” the sun god roared. “I am chasing this silly hyena, “ the water goddess answered. Then she made a terrible mistake. “But I can rain on whoever I want to, whenever I want to.” The sun god grabbed the water goddess by her dress and held her tight. “No, you may not. In fact, from now on, there will be places that you can never go to rain on people. This way, I can take a nap and not have to worry about you disturbing me. The water goddess tried to resist, but the sun god was stronger than she was. This is why sometimes you will see the sun out while it is raining. This is the sun god making sure that the water goddess remembers that he is stronger than she is.

The hyena quickly moved to the land where the water goddess can never go and has been happy ever since. How do I know? I can tell because her voice is never one of sadness anymore, it is always a laugh.

The End