Long ago in the Kalahari, porcupines were barbed thorn bushes that sprouted beige flowers and pencil-thin leaves. For years, the rain gods refused to send the rain; but the wind gods blew the legs-pinching windstorms. Afterwards, the porcupine shrubs yielded fluffy squeegees. 

The red goats devoured these appetising bubbles. Soon, the kinfolk thieved large ear-flapping cows and kept them in bush-fenced kraals. The cattle rustlers angered the lemon-yellow shrubs, as the greedy cows chomped the offshoots. The wizards whined that the porcupine bushes were warlike gods. They preached that the fries-like bubbles had made their cows skin and bones. Some cattle herders damned the foam-like fruits for littering the once-scenic Kalahari. 

A cattle-Kalahari man bellyached that one of his divine cows had become eyeless after a porcupine shrub had pricked it. The milk-white cow became blind, triggering the cow gods to thirst for its blood. The zillion cows mistook the golden bubbles for manna snacks, as they chased after the fluffy flowers. By the time the cows had masticated the vinegary fizzes, they were miles away from the boreholes, and many died from thirst. A potbellied farmer consulted the magicians, and soon all the porcupine shrubs were to be cleared. Snakeskins’ apron men sharpened their battle-axes, and that year was baptised the ‘Plaque of Porcupines. During the cutting rituals, the c-shaped thorns porcupine trees punctured the hare-brained men. Most muscular men haemorrhaged to death. Soon, the porcupine trees changed their thorns into v-shaped thorns in order to stab more men. Many men succumbed from infectious thorn wounds. Later, the scattered porcupine shrubs shaped countless bush-fenced graveyards. 

Finally, the porcupine shrubberies grew knife-pointed quills, and became half-animals and half-trees. There was one last tree standing; but it had shrunk in size, after witnessing the horror of its clan being wiped out. The shrub had cringed from the sorrow of seeing its friends being uprooted. Soon, the farmers gambled that whoever cut down the remaining tree would marry a daughter of the wind god. 

The next morning, bachelors showed up with sharpened axes to cut down the porcupine tree. Upon seeing this, the porcupine tree sticks out its needle-sharp quills. Then it ran behind the reddish sand dunes. Up to this day, a porcupine had metamorphosed into a running tree of the Kalahari.