Ethiopian Folktales

Narrated by Opiew Amwong

Once there was a snake which had not eaten for many days. It had become thin. When it was crawling around to look for food, it came out of the forest and went into a farmer’s house. It saw some milk in the bottle, and because it was very thin, it slithered into the bottle and drank the milk. Then it was too fat to get out of the bottle again.

When the farmer came home, he saw the snake in the bottle and he said, “Where is the milk that was in the bottle? Are you going to spit it out, so that you can get out of the bottle?”

The snake replied, “All my life I have been biting people, but now what can I do?”

The snake thought, “If I spit out the milk and come out, the farmer will kill me and I’ll still be hungry, so I’d better stay here and die.”

So he stayed in the bottle and died.

If you have two bad choices, take the better of two evils.