One day, Hare went to see Lion, the king of animals, and said to him: “I would like you to give me a medicine that will make me the wisest of all the animals.”  Lion answered: “Go and get a live snake, some live doves and some goat tears and bring them to me.”

So Hare went to look for the three things Lion, the king, had asked Hare to bring to him  He carried a walking stick in his hand and two empty gourds on his back. 

As he was searching, he first found a snake and asked him, “You are very long, may I measure you with my walking stick to see how long you are?”  Hare used his walking stick as the measuring instrument.  The snake proudly stretched itself out as far as it could and Hare quickly tied it onto his walking stick.

With the snake tied to his walking stick and the two empty gourds on his back, Hare walked a little further and found some turtledoves. He opened one of the gourds and laid it on the ground.   The turtledoves went into the gourd to look for food. When they got inside the gourd, Hare closed it, trapping them inside. He put the gourds on his back, picked up his stick with the snake tied to it and went on to look for goat tears, which was the last thing Lion had asked him to find. 

A little further along, Hare saw some goats. He went up to them and asked: “I have heard that goats never shed tears. Is this true? Can you show that it is not true by crying tears into this gourd?” The goats began to cry, and cried until the second gourd was full of their tears.

Proud of himself, Hare went back to Lion, his king, with a live snake tied to his stick, live doves in the first gourd and goat tears in the second gourd.  He had all the things that Lion had asked him to find. 

When Lion saw that Hare had brought all the things that he was asked to find, he said: “You do not need medicine to be the wisest of all the animals because you have already proved you are the wisest!” Since that time, the lion decided never to catch the hare, so the hare was no longer one of the lion’s prey. 
