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Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories (London, 1937)
These tales originated from bedtime stories for Kipling’s daughter Josephine about how animals acquired their distinctive features.
In ‘The Elephant’s Child’ a baby elephant asks what crocodiles eat for their dinner. Getting no answer from his parents, he goes to investigate himself, only to have his small nose ‘then no bigger than a boot’ trapped in the mouth of the huge reptile. The crocodile pulls and the elephant’s nose stretches, until he finally escapes. This, according to Kipling, is how the elephant got its trunk.Citation:
Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories (London, 1937),
Marsh's Library Exhibits,
accessed May 10, 2024,
https://www.marshlibrary.ie/digi/items/show/749