A medieval king was hunting in Africa, and he killed a lion, an elephant and a hippopotamus.
Returning to his kingdom, he awarded the hides from these animals to his three squires. In turn, these three squires became known as the Lion Squire, the Elephant Squire and the Hippo Squire.
As the years passed, the Lion Squire and the Elephant Squire became increasingly jealous of the Hippo Squire because he possessed, what to them was, the most treasured of the three hides.
So these two jealous squires hatched a plot to kill the Hippo Squire and divide the hippo skin between them.
Now the Lion Squire had ten sons and the Elephant Squire had six sons, whilst the Hippo Squire was childless. So the Lion Squire and the Elephant Squire sent their sixteen sons to kill the Hippo Squire and return with the prized hide.
However, in the ensuing battle, the Hippo Squire single-handedly managed to kill all sixteen of the sons.
Thus it is proved that the squire of the hippopotamus is equal to the sons of the squires of the other two hides.
