The Cowardly Lion

Once upon a time, in a great and beautiful jungle, their lived a lion. He was a beautiful lion, with a shiny coat and a majestic mane. But the best thing about this lion was that he had the greatest roar of all the lions. And, my-oh-my, didn't he just love to roar.

This majestic lion would spend his days roaming from one end of the jungle to the other; north to south; east to west. He would stop periodically and just stand and roar. All the other jungle creatures were in awe of his mighty voice. They all thought that with a roar like that this lion must be the most feared and powerful animal in the jungle.

Now walking and roaring all day is a hungry job. One can build a huge appetite doing all that hard work. So every afternoon, one of his pride would bring down a gazelle or a wildebeest or some other critter for the mighty lion's dinner.

So, this one day, while the lion was feasting on the prey that they had brought him, he stopped to give a couple of roars as was his habit. While he was roaring, a cheetah ran in and grabbed his meal and ran off with it. And the lion thought, "I've had enough. It is not worth chasing that cheetah and I am to important for that anyway for everyone fears me. 

The very next day the lion was walking and roaring his way down a narrow jungle path. Suddenly, he comes face to face with a elephant. Not a big elephant. Not a small elephant. Just an average elephant. The lion thought, "this elephant must get out of my way and let me pass". So he gave a series of his greatest roars. The elephant simply stood there and stared at him, not moving a muscle. So the lion decided that he didn't want to go this way anyway, and turned off the path.

The next day a handsome and charming young lion stole his favorite from his harem. By the time he realized that she was gone, he felt it was too late to bother chasing her. And besides his harem was still large. The day after that, a sneaky jackal stole his dinner and he never realized it was gone until his stomach started growling.

You know how it is in the jungle. The jackals talk to the cheetahs. The elephants talk to everybody. Soon stories are shared among all the jungle denizens. So they talked and talked. They had long discussions around the waterhole. And soon the whole jungle knew. In spite of his mighty roar, all they had was a cowardly lion.