At the beginning of the world, the cat was the friend of the antelope in the bush. But once the lion came to the bush and fought and killed the antelope. So the cat thought the lion was better, and became a friend of the lion. But then a group of elephants fought the lion and the lion was killed, so it became the friend of the elephants. Then it saw a man kill an elephant.

“Oh, this is better than the elephant,” and the cat became the friend of man.

As soon as the man went into his house there was a quarrel with his wife, and his wife ran at him with a stick, shouting, “Where have you been?”

And she shouted many bad things to him. So the man ran away.

“Oh,” said the cat, “the woman is stronger than the man.”

So the cat became the friend of the woman.

This tale was narrated by Abdul Hakim Abdulahi Jibril on Ethiopian Folktales.