"The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo" is a

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

— one of the '' Just So'' stories by

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. ...

The story was first told aloud by the author to his daughter Josephine as part of their

oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985) ...

. It was then written down and first published in '' Ladies' Home Journal'' in June 1900. It involves a vain kangaroo who asks three gods to make him unlike other animals, and sought-after. Two of them, the Little God Nqa and the Middle God Nquing, refuse, and only the third, the Big God Nqong, accepts. The result is Yellow-Dog Dingo trying to catch Kangaroo all across Australia, explaining how kangaroos came to have strong legs.

Plot

References

19th-century British children's literature Fictional kangaroos and wallabies Animal tales Short stories by Rudyard Kipling Works originally published in Ladies' Home Journal 1902 short stories {{1900s-story-stub