A soothing bedtime story to help you fall asleep — read slowly and softly by Martin, for anyone lying awake and wanting something gentle to drift off to.
Tonight's reading is How the Leopard Got His Spots, one of Rudyard Kipling's much-loved Just So Stories, first published in 1902 and long out of copyright.
It's a warm, playful tale of the bare, sunlit High Veldt, of a giraffe and a zebra who slip away into a shadowy forest, of Baviaan the wise baboon and his riddling advice, and of how a leopard and his hunting companion finally learn to change. Kipling wrote these stories to be spoken aloud to a child at bedtime — the rolling, repeating rhythm and the familiar refrain of "best beloved" are exactly what makes them settle a restless mind.
The story
Transcribed from the audio, so the odd word may be off. Tap any line while it plays to keep the words in step with Martin's voice.
Books at Bedtime by Calming Anxiety How the leopard got his spots by Rudyard Kipling In the days when everybody started fair, best beloved The leopard lived in a place called the Highvealt Remember it wasn't the lowvealt or the bushvealt or the sauervealt But the exclusively bare hot sunny shiny highvealt Where there was sand and sandy coloured rock And exclusively tufts of sandy yellowish grass The giraffe and the zebra and the yellow and the cadoo And the heartbeasts lived there And they were exclusively sandy yellow brownish all over But the leopard he was the scleuthiest, sandiest yellowishy brownest of them all A greyish yellowish catty shaped kind of beast And he matched the exclusively yellowish greyish brownish colour of the Highvealt to one hair This was very bad for the giraffe and the zebra and the rest of them For he would lie down by the exclusively yellowish greyish brownish stone or clump of grass And when the giraffe or the zebra or the yellow and or the cadoo or the bushback or the bontieback came by He would surprise them out of their jumps and lives He would indeed And also, there was an Ethiopian with bows and arrows, a scleuths of the greyish brownish yellowish man he was then Who lived on the highvealt with the leopard And the two used to hunt together, the Ethiopian with his bows and arrows And the leopard exclusively with his teeth and claws Till the giraffe and the ellen and the cadoo and the quagga and all the rest of them didn't know which way to jump Best beloved, they didn't indeed After a long time, things lived for ever so long in those days They learned to avoid anything that looked like a leopard or an Ethiopian And bit by bit, the giraffe began it Because his legs were the longest, they went on away from the highvealt They scuttled for days and days and days Till they came to a great forest Sglucively full of trees and bushes and stripy, speckly, patchy, blatchy shadows And there they hid And after another long time, what would stand in half in the shade and half out of it? And what would the slippery shady shadows and the trees falling on them? The giraffe grew blotchy and the zebra grew stripy And the ellen and the cadoo grew darker With little wavy cray lines on their backs like barks on a tree trunk And so, though you could hear them and smell them, you could very seldom see them And then only when you knew precisely where to look They had a beautiful time in the exclusively speckly, sprickly shadows of the forest While the leopard and the Ethiopian ran about all over the exclusively greyishy yellowish reddish highvealt outside Wondering where all their breakfasts and their dinners and their teetid con At last, they were so hungry that they ate rats and beetles and rock rabbits, the leopard and the Ethiopian And then they had a big bad tummy ache, both together And then they met Bavian, the dog headed barking the boon, who is quite the wisest animal in all South Africa Said leopard to Bavian and it was a very hot day Where as all the gang gone and Bavian went, he knew Said the Ethiopian to Bavian, can you tell me the present habitat of the Aboriginal fauna That meant just the same thing but the Ethiopian always used long words, he was a grownup And the Bavian went, he knew Then said the Bavian, the game has gone into other spots and my advice to you leopard is to go into other spots as soon as you can And the Ethiopian said, that is all very fine but I wish to know with it the Aboriginal fauna has migrated Then the Bavian said, the Aboriginal fauna has joined the Aboriginal flora because it was high time for a change And my advice to you Ethiopian is to change as soon as you can That puzzled the leopard and the Ethiopian but they set off to look for the Aboriginal flora And presently, after ever so many days, they saw a great high tall forest full of tree trunks all exclusively speckled and spottled and bottled, dotted and splashed and slashed and hatched and cross-hatched with shadows Say that quickly aloud and you will see how very shadduy the forest must have become "What is this?" said the leopard, that it is so exclusively dark and yet so full of little pieces of light "I don't know," said the Ethiopian, "but it ought to be the Aboriginal flora, I can smell giraffe and I can hear giraffe but I cannot see giraffe "That's curious," said the leopard "I suppose it is because we have just coming out of the sunshine, I can smell zebra and I can hear zebra but I cannot see zebra "Wait a bit," said the Ethiopian, "it's a long time since we've hunted him, perhaps we've forgotten what they look like "Diddle," said the leopard, "I remember them perfectly on the high belt, especially their marivones "Giraffe is about 17 feet high, obesculuively, fulvest, golden yellow from head to heel and zebra is about four and a half feet high, obesculuively grey-formed color from head to heel "Hmm," said the Ethiopian, looking into the speckly, speckly shadows of the Aboriginal flora forest "Then they ought to show up in this dark place, like right bananas in a smokehouse, but they didn't "The leopard and the Ethiopian hunted all day and though they could smell them and hear them, they never saw one of them "Goodness, sake," said the leopard at tea time "Let us wait till it gets dark, this daylight hunting is a perfect scandal "So they waited till dark, and then the leopard heard something breathing, sniffly in the star night, that felt all stripy through the branches, and he jumped at the noise "And it smelled like zebra, and it felt like zebra, and when he knocked it down, it kicked like zebra, but he couldn't see it "So he said, 'Be quiet, are you person without any form? I am going to sit on your head till morning, because there is something about you I don't understand "Presently, he heard a grunt and a crash and a scramble, and the Ethiopian called out, I've called to think that I can't see, it smells like giraffe, and it kicks like giraffe, but it hasn't any form "Don't you trust it," said the leopard, "Sit on its head till the morning, same as me, they haven't any form any of them "So they sat down on them, hard, until the bright morning time," and then leopard said, "What view at your end of the table, brother?"
The Ethiopian scratched his head and said, "It ought to be exclusively a rich, fulver's orange tawny from head to heel, and it ought to be a giraffe, but it is covered all over with chestnut blotches "What view at your end of the table, brother?" And the leopard, he scratched his head and said, "It ought to be exclusively a delicate, grayish form, and it ought to be zebra, but it is all covered all over with black and purple stripes "What in the world have you been doing to yourself, zebra? Don't you know that if you are on the high-veld, I could see you ten miles off, you haven't any form?"
"Yes," said zebra, "but this isn't the high-veld, can't you see?" "I can now," said leopard, "but I couldn't tell all of yesterday, how is it done?" "Let us up," said the zebra, "and we will show you." They let the zebra and the giraffe get up, and zebra moved away to some little formbushes where the sunlight fell or stripy And the giraffe moved off to some tallish trees where the shadows fell or blotchy "Now watch," said the zebra and the giraffe "This is the way it's done, one, two, three, and where's your breakfast?"
Leopard stared, and Ethiopian stared, but all they could see was stripy shadows and blotched shadows in the forest But never a sign of zebra and giraffe They had just walked off and hidden themselves in the shadowy forest "Hi, hi," said the Ethiopian, "now that's a trick worth learning Take a lesson by it leopard, you show up in this dark place like a bar of soap in a cold scuttle "Oh, oh," said the leopard, "would it surprise you very much to know that you'll show up in this dark place like a mustard plaster on a sack of coals?"
"Well, calling names won't catch dinner," said the Ethiopian "The long and the little of it is that we won't match our backgrounds I'm going to take Bavarian's advice, he told me I ought to change And as I've nothing to change except my skin, I'm going to change that What too?" said the leopard, tremendously excited To a nice working blackish brownish colour, with a little purple in it and touches of slaty blue It will be the very thing for hiding in hollows and behind trees So he changed his skin then and there and the leopard was more excited than ever He had never seen a man change his skin before "But what about me?" he said, when the Ethiopian had worked his last little fingers into his fine new black skin "You take Bavarian's advice too, he told you to go into spots So I did," said the leopard, "I went into other spots as fast as I could I went into this spot with you and a lot of good it has done me" "Oh," said the Ethiopian, "Bavarian didn't mean spots in South Africa He meant spots in your skin "What's the use of that?" said the leopard "Think of giraffe," said the Ethiopian "I prefer stripes, think of zebra They find their spots and stripes given the per-feet satisfaction "Mmm," said the leopard "I wouldn't look like zebra, not forever so Well, make up your mind," said the Ethiopian "Because I'd hate to go hunting without you But if I'm masked, if you insist on looking like a sunflower again, on a tarred fence I'll take spots then," said the leopard "But don't make him too vulgar big, I wouldn't look like giraffe, not forever so I'll make him with the tips of my fingers at the Ethiopian There's plenty of black left on my skin Stand over there Then, the Ethiopian put his five fingers close together There was plenty of black left on the new skin still They pressed them all over the leopard And wherever the five fingers touched They left five little black marks all close together You can see them on any leopard skin that you like best but luck Sometimes, the fingers slipped and the marks got a little blurred But if you look very closely at any leopard now You'll see that there are always five spots of five fat black fingertips "Now, you are a beauty," said the Ethiopian "You can lie out on the bare ground and look like a heap of pebbles You can lie out on the naked rocks and look like a piece of pudding stone You can lie out on a leafy branch and look like sunshine sifting through the leaves And you can lie right across the centre of the path and look like nothing in particular Think of that and purr "But if I am like this," said the leopard "Why didn't you go spotty too?" "Oh, plain backs best for me," said the Ethiopian "Now come along and we'll see if we can get even with Mr. 1-2-3 Where's your breakfast?" So they went away and lived happily ever after best beloved That is all And now and then you will hear grown-ups say "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?" "I don't think even grown-ups would keep on saying such a silly thing If the leopard and the Ethiopian hadn't done it once, do you?"
But they will never do it again best beloved For they are quite contented as they are