Is it a Rudyard Kipling story...

[jcr1977]

Please can someone tell me if the famous tale about how white people are white after bathing in a lake and black people are black as the water was too cold so they only dipped their hands and feet in... is a Kipling story or not.

Also what is the title...

Thank-you!

[SaxyJag]

I've never heard it before, and certainly not from Kipling, but I could be wrong. His Just So stories tended to revolve around the natural world and in any case, he was fairly PC by the standards of his day. I just wouldn't have thought so, that's all.

And it's a horrible story.

[jcr1977]

I remember being told this story at school - I only just remembered it as a friend of mine from the Ivory Coast retold it to me but she assumed it was folklore. Her version was about miners coming up from a coal pit and taking a wash if this helps anyone trace it's origins..

[heathfield]

I know of the story you mean, but I don't recall that it was by Kipling. The nearest thing to it that he wrote would be the 'Just So' story of How The Leopard Got His Spots A nice tale.