Ethiopian Folktales

Narrated by Ibrahim Sharif

Once upon a time there was a very rich man. One day he gathered all his belongings and went to live in another city. On the way there he met a stranger. After their greetings the stranger began to walk alongside him.

He pretended that he was a peaceful companion, but after a while, when they reached a quiet place, the stranger said, “I am going to kill you now. Who will save you?”

The rich man looked around and saw no one; then he looked up and saw a pigeon sitting on a tree.

He said, “This pigeon will save me.”

The stranger was amazed and began to laugh, and he killed the rich man and took all his belongings, and he went to a city and settled there. Since he had become a very rich person, he began to be invited into the palace whenever there was a feast and a meeting.

One day the king organised a very big feast and called all the community in the city, including the stranger. The banquet was sumptuous with many kinds of food and the people ate according to their tastes. So the stranger began to choose from the food what he liked. In the process he came upon a roasted pigeon. He remembered how he had killed the rich man and he laughed. When the king saw him laughing, the king, thinking that he was mocking him, ordered his soldiers to grab the stranger and kill him.

And then the stranger decided to tell the reason why he laughed, since he was going to be killed anyway. So the king listened and had him killed, and all the stranger’s property was given back to the right inheritors of the rich man.