Ethiopian Folktales

Narrated by Moti Wayeesa

Once upon a time, there was a husband and his wife and the wife became pregnant, but the husband was about to die.

So he said to his wife, “Listen. If the child to be born is a boy and I am dead, give him the three pieces of advice. The first is, never send your wife to a house where there is a wedding to spend the night. The second is, never give a pregnant mare to a friend to ride. And the third one is that he should never go to his sister’s house in need."

So the man died, and his wife did indeed give birth to a son. And when the boy grew up, his mother gave him his father’s words of advice.

Now the son was very curious and he wanted to know why his father had given him these words of advice.

 So one day, when there was a wedding in another house, he told his wife that she should go and spend the night there. Then he disguised himself and he went to the wedding and he saw his wife drinking and dancing, and he too began dancing with her though she didn’t recognise him. And then he asked her to have sex with him and she agreed. And he took her and he spent the night with her.

In the morning she still didn’t recognise him and he asked her to give him a sign that she’d spent the night with him, and she tore the necklace off her neck and gave it to the stranger that she’d spent the night with, who she didn’t know was her husband.

Then after some time a friend of his came and asked to borrow a horse. So he gave his friend a pregnant mare, then he himself mounted on a stallion and he followed from a distance. After some time his friend was riding the mare so hard that she aborted. The friend hardly gave her a second glance. He threw away the aborted foal and started riding away as fast as he could.

The man got down and cut off a small piece of the aborted foal as evidence and took it with him.

Then after some time he put on old clothes and went to his sister’s house. And he said, “Sister, I’ve lost all our father’s wealth. I have become poor.”

“ Sit outside the house,” she said. “Like a beggar.”

And his sister’s husband said, “He is your brother, let him come in. We can give him some clothes and maybe we can give him a cow.”

“No, no,” the sister said. “He’s no good if he’s lost all our money,” and she gave him a pitiful handful of grain, which would normally be given to a beggar.

So the man went home and he prepared a big feast in his house, and he sent a message to his sister saying, “Come, I have regained our father’s wealth. I’ve become rich.”

And he sent a message to his friends saying, “Come, I want you to eat at my house.”

His wife was already in the house, and he called all the elders and he said, “I want to tell you all something. My father left me three statements of wisdom. The first one was never to send my wife to a house where there was a wedding. The second was never to give a friend of mine a pregnant mare to ride. And the third one was never to go to my sister with problems. And I have tested my father’s wisdom and it is true. Here is the necklace of my wife. I disguised myself as a stranger and at the wedding house she spent the night with me. If I had been a stranger, this would have been disloyal. Here is the leg of the foal which was aborted from the mare my friend rode, and here it is the handful of grain my sister gave me. Therefore we should always accept the advice of our fathers and the elders."