African Tale
Crocodile Skin
The African folk tale reveals why crocodiles have such a rough and scaly skin. It wasn’t always like this though. The story teaches that much pride can be harmful.
There was once a poor nobleman who had three sons. The older two were apprenticed as
Hans’s parents wondered what would become of him. One day, they invited a wise old woman to their home and asked her for advice.
“What are we to do with our Hans?” they asked. “He is so weak, how can he ever earn a
“Let him become a tailor,” the wise woman told them. “He’ll do just fine, you'll see! And here’s a little thimble for him, to bring good
When Hans brought the geese back from the pasture, he thanked the wise woman kindly for the thimble. The old woman was so delighted at how kind and polite he was that she gave him a pair of scissors as
“Never work with any other thimble or scissors than these, young lad,” she whispered to him.
Not a week had passed before little Hans reported for duty at the tailor’s in the village. With his small thimble, he could already sew better than any other tailor. So the tailor decided to teach him to cut cloth. But as soon as Hans picked up his scissors, it was clear that he could already cut
“I have nothing more to teach you,” the tailor told him, and he sent him to serve in a larger town.
But nobody in that town would take Hans