Once upon a time, a wicked wizard stole a baby from a woman who lived in a village by the River of Tears. He took that baby to his lonely tower and locked him in.

One day the wizard went off to Kartoum looking for powdered alligator teeth, and he left the child in the care of his faithful apprentice, a narcoleptic elf who always wore a pointed yellow hat . Years passed and the wizard never returned. The child, who had now grown to be a young man, pleaded with the elf to let him go, but the elf was nothing if not faithful, and he refused.

Meanwhile, the child's mother wandered the countryside looking for her lost child. Her only friend and constant companion was a large black rhinoceros. In a high mountain village, in a bustling seaport, in a small town at the edge of the desert, the woman would play her violin and sing and the rhinoceros would dance, and so the two travellers managed to collect a few coins or a bit of food to sustain them on their journey. The woman's favourite song was a mournful ballad about a porcupine and a rock.

On a crisp autumn morning, the young man in the tower awoke to find himself humming a strange and haunting melody. And from somewhere deep in his soul, words bubbled up ... words that told the poignant story of a hard-hearted rock and a friendless porcupine.

While the elf slept by the door of the tower, the young man stood at a window high, and sang till he thought his heart would burst.

The elf was startled awake by the sound of thunder! The earth shook beneath him and the rumbling grew louder. Suddenly, he saw a huge black shape like a rock with legs hurtling toward him. The elf leapt up and ran, and the black rhinoceros smashed through the tower's oak door as if it were paper.

The young man ran from the tower singing with joy. His mother heard the familiar song, and knew immediately that the young man was her long lost son.

The mother and the son bought a giraffe to be a companion to the rhinoceros, and to this very day you can find them singing and dancing in a mountain village or a bustling seaport or town on the edge of the desert.