Once upon a time there was no fire, except the fire keepers, the fire keepers were the only people who had fire. The fire keepers would never let anybody have their fire. The winter's were cold, cold, cold. The only friends the fire keepers had were the other fire keepers. Everybody tries to get some fire from the fire keepers, but they always come back with nothing. The animals said they would be friends with the fire keepers if they would give the animals some fire, but how ever much they wanted friends, they wanted all of the fire.
The animals were so cold without fire, so they called for a meeting. They tried and tried to think of a plan, but they couldn't think of a plan at all.
Squirrel said,"Let's ask coyote. He'll think of a plan."
Then they noticed that they forgot to tell coyote they were having a meeting, so they went and got him.
Once coyote showed up chipmunk said, "Coyote, we need you to think of a plan to get the fire."
Coyote thought and thought. Then he thought of a plan. He told the rest of the animals.
When the animals snuck up on the fire keepers they saw two old hags guarding the fire. Then squirrel, following the plan, went in a bush and made some noise. The two hags noticed this, so they went to investigate. When the coast was clear coyote ran, got a stick of fire, turned around, and ran again. When the hags noticed that coyote had some fire they started to chase him. Although the hag was old, she caught up to coyote. The hag was so close the heat from her hand burnt the tip of coyote's tail and turned it white, so coyote passed the fire to squirrel.
Squirrel curled the fire up in her tail. The heat from the fire was hot and burnt squirrel's tail, which made it curl up. Squirrel couldn't stand the heat, so she passed it to chipmunk.
The second hag chased chipmunk. The hag caught up and scratched chipmunk's back, which left 3 white streaks on her coat. Chipmunk couldn't hold the fire, so she passed it to frog.
A guy they never even saw guarding the fire grabbed frog's tail. Frog kept on running. The man pulled as hard as he could, and pulled frog's tail off! That hurt so much frog just threw the fire up. The wood got it and kept it.
The fire keepers knew they couldn't get any fire from the wood, so they walked home. The man said, "At least we can have frog tail soup for dinner."
That myth tells why the tip of the coyotes' tail is white, the squirrel's tail is always curled up, the chipmunk's coat has three white strips, why frogs have no tail, and why you rub two dry sticks together to get fire.
Adapted with permission from a legend told on Planet OzKids - www.planetozkids.com/oban
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