Ethiopian Folktales

Narrated by Tessema Gebre

At the start of the story, the narrator says:
Wemaka notka.
(Let me tell you a story.)

The listeners reply:
Egi nismahe.
(OK, let me listen)

A woman had eight sons and a stepson called Kore. Kore was very brave and he brought captives from the battlefield. The eight brothers were jealous of him, because of his bravery. They wanted him to be killed and he was all alone without any supporter. The eight sons told their mother that they didn’t like the fact that they were not as brave as he was.

"Why can’t we get rid of him?” they said to her.

“All right,” she says. “I’ll send him to the forest so he will be eaten by an elephant.”

“Can you do that?”

“Yes, I can,” she says.

The mother says to Kore, “I am sick, my child. I want you to bring me medicine.”

“What kind of medicine?”

“The tail of an elephant.”

Kore was so brave that he killed an elephant and brought her the tail. The mother and her eight sons were disappointed that he was not eaten by the elephant so they looked for other ways to get rid of him.

“Now I’ll send him to the river to fetch water and you’ll ambush him there and drown him,” she said to them.

Again, she said to Kore, “I’m sick. I need water right now.”

And it was dark. He went to the river to fetch water and the brothers came with spears to kill him.

He escaped and he killed them one by one.