Hello, my name is Kieran.

Welcome to Makeup Stories.

I live in Zagreb Croatia and I am four and a half years old.

Hello and welcome to MakeD up. I'm your host Amanda. Today we'll be sharing a classic story with you until we're ready to continue our story about Finn and his job at the Commonwealth Games. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for a competition or a game you'd like to see between Godzilla, a T-Rex, and a million cats, send us an email

or a voice memo to make-up stories at gmail.com.

The story I'm sharing with you today is one from a series of short stories called Just So

Stories by the author Redyard Kipling.

But Kipling is not the only author to ever tell a just so story. A just so story is any story that provides an untestable explanation

for a cultural practice, a biological trait, or the behavior of humans or animals. That means we don't have any way to prove that the story is true.

In some cases, we might have good reason to suspect that it's not.

The story we're about to hear is Kipling's account of how baleen whales got the baleen in their mouths that they used to filter food.

After the story, I'll be curious to hear from you whether you think that's really how baleen whales got their baleen.

I hope you enjoy the story.

How the whale got his throat. In the sea, once upon a time, oh, my best beloved, there was a whale, and he ate fishes.

He ate the starfish and the garfish, and the crab, and the dab, and the place and the dace, and the skate, and his mate, and the mackerel, and the

picaril, and the really, truly, twirly, whirly, eel. All the fishes he could find in all the

sea he ate with his mouth. So, till at last, there was only one small fish left in the sea, and he was a small

stute fish, and he swam a little behind the whales right here, so as to be out of harm's way.

Then the whale stood up on his tail and said, I'm hungry. And the small stute fish said in a small,

stute voice, noble and generous cetacean, have you ever tasted a man? No, said the whale. What is it like?

Nice, said the small stute fish. "'Nice, but nubly.'

"'Then fetch me some,' said the whale,

...