Ethiopian Folktales
Tigray Folktales
Mother Fox and the Hyena
There was a fox with her two cubs. She gave a name to one of them: Weynai, which means not too bright, not too black.
When the fox goes to the field to collect food she closes the door with the cubs inside. The other cub is Gella.
When the fox comes back, she says:
“One Weynai
One Gella
Open the door for me.”
One day, when she calls her cubs, the hyena hears. So when the fox goes hunting, the hyena comes and calls the same way. The cubs hesitate because the voice is different. The hyena changes his voice and makes it thinner and says the same words. Now they believe it�s their mother and open the door. He eats them.
The fox comes home. When she calls her usual cry, no answer comes. She jumps into the house and she knows they�ve been eaten by the hyena.
The next day she prepares a hole in the ground and covers it with goatskin and invites the hyena to share a sheep.
Come, eat.
The hyena comes and she says, �Sit on the goatskin.�
But the hyena sees the goatskin sink a bit into the hole.
�Oh it�s nothing. Sit there.�
So he sits on it and falls through. The fox takes boiling water and pours it on to him.
It is Found
There was an old man and he was going to the river to wash his clothes. And on the way he met a boy.
The boy asked, “Where are you going, my father?”
The old man said, “To the river to wash my clothes.”
The boy answered, “Why don’t I wash your clothes myself?”
The old man agreed and asked the boy’s name.
The boy said, “My name is Tegenew (it is found).”
The old man made an appointment to come back and fetch the washed clothes. But the boy didn’t show up. Some friends of the old man were passing and they asked him why he was sitting there.
He said, “I’m waiting for a boy who took my clothes to the river to wash.”
He asked for their help to look for him.
So they searched, calling, “It is found! Are you there?”
The old man thought they had found the clothes, so he went home.
The Foolish Thief Dog
One day a dog stole meat from a neighbour and on his way he found a river. And he stood there and when he looked in the water he saw his reflection. He thought it was another dog and went to attack it and was drowned.
The Little Bird and the Elephant
Once there was an elephant and a little bird and the little bird was living in a tree on her nest, sitting on her eggs. After a while, they hatched.
One day she flew off to fetch some food for her chicks. When she came back the chicks were killed by the elephant. The elephant was going under the tree all the time to drink water, so he touched the tree, the chicks fell out and he trod on them by accident.
When the bird came back, the chicks were killed and the bird realised it was the elephant who killed them because she saw the footprint.
She said, “Why did you kill my chicks?”
The elephant answered, “So what?”
And she replied, “For killing my chicks you should apologise, but you didn’t say sorry.”
He laughs at her.
“I’ll show you,” said the little bird.
“Ha, ha, ha,” says the elephant.
She went to her friends and told them the sad story, and they said, “How can we help you?”
She said, “You can help me by hurting the eyes of the elephant and making him blind. Then he won’t be able to move.”
They all agreed.
When the elephant was going to the water as usual all the birds flew at his eyes and began to peck them and he became blind.
The small birds also went to the water and met a frog and asked the frogs to help.
“Please croak away from the water and the elephant will come, thinking there is water.”
So they did it at the edge of a big ditch. The elephant came, following their croaks and the elephant fell into the ditch.
The elephant moaned and the bird stood on his head and said, “You killed my chicks and I have had my revenge.”
The Monks’ Blessing
There was a wife and husband and they had a son.
They said, “We’re getting old. We shall find a wife for our boy.”
The boy agreed to their choice and he was married and he had one child. After that he went away to work, out of the village. He went to one of the houses in the town to ask for a job. They told him there is nothing in their place, but showed him another place to ask. The second place was full of monks.
The asked him, “How long will you be staying with us?”
He said, “Only four or five months, because I have my old father to care for.”
“But we want someone for a long time,” said the monks, and the young man agreed.
Another asked him if he was educated or not.
He said, “Yes I am seventh grade student.”
They gave him more responsibility – which was to sit on a chair and collect the income of the monks.
So he worked there for ten years. After ten years he said, “I must go home to my family.”
They agreed and gave him 400 birr1.
He said, “When the other employees left you, you blessed them. Why don’t you bless me?”
They said, “We made the others pay 100 birr for each blessing.”
The boy said, “Give me the blessing, but give me the money too.”
Then they blessed him three times, and he paid them 300 birr, so only 100 birr was left.
The blessings were: go only by the road you know; do what anyone asks you on the way; don’t get upset by anything you see or hear.
He had 100 birr only and the monks gave him a letter (sealed) and told him to open it only in front of his family.
So he went.
On his way he met two poor men. They started talking and went on together. On their way, they came to a crossroads.
The boy said, “I must go with you.”
The man said, “But you don’t know that way. Don’t take it.”
The two men went the other way.
The boy came across a river and heard loud noises. He went up a hill to look and saw the two men on the other road, being beaten by bandits.
He said, “If I hadn’t been blessed by the monks I would have been beaten like them.”
When he looked the other way he saw a very bright light and he followed it. It was a house. When he knocks at the door a noble old man opens the door and lets him in. And he brought water so he could wash his hands and feet2, but he refused; because the man was older and more important he felt ashamed.
But finally he remembered the blessing – do what anyone asks you on the way.
So he let the old man wash his feet and bring him food. He ate the food. The old man brought him a blind girl with no eyes. He told him to feed her from his dish. The boy wondered who she was but he didn’t say anything because of the second blessing – accept whatever you find on the way. So she gave him the food. The old man told the boy to sleep on a bed over a grave. So he did.
Early in the morning he woke up and said, “I will go now to my home.”
The old man said, “Well done, what you did was lovely. You accepted everything. The woman was blind because of me, because she always torments me to marry her, and the grave is full of those who refused to obey my orders. But you have done everything I told you.”
He gave him 10,000 birr.
And when he is on his way he came to a church and he found two men praying there naked.
He asks, “What are they doing?”
He was upset. They are rolling on the ground. But he remembered the third blessing – don’t get upset about anything you see or hear.
So he went on. Again he meets a lot of people running about, disturbed, and he asks, “Who are these people?”
They said, “There’s an old man who lost his son ten years ago and they’re giving him money because there’s no one to help him.”
“I am his son,” he said.
They said, “Your father and son are praying in the church – it was the men who were naked, rolling around.”
So he went back.
But when he got there he remembered the monks’ letter and opened it and found 400 birr.
So they lived happily ever after.