Ethiopian Folktales

Narrated by Worku Woldemariam

A husband and wife lived together. He was a coward and she was tricky. She had a lover. She wanted her lover to come to her house and she had a plan.

�Bandits have come to our village,� she said to her husband. �They are killing people around here.�

�What bandits?�

As she said this, the lover comes and bangs on the door, shouting, �Open the door!�

�So one is coming as I feared! Hide yourself!� she tells him.

The man hides in the next room (guarda � side room in hut).

The lover enters the house and says, �This house smells of men. Are there men here?"

�There is no man. I am all alone,� she says.

She brings food and they eat together.

�Water for my feet! Wash them.�

She does what he orders.

�Get me a bed. Come, let�s sleep.�

�All right.�

And they sleep.

She is pretending to take orders in fear.

At midnight the husband makes a rustling noise in his hiding place.

�Are you trying to get me killed here? Is there a man in the house?�

�Oh no sir. I�m all alone in this cottage. It�s only a calf in the guarda.�

So the husband says, �Moo! Moo!� like a calf.

The lover was happy to make a fool of the husband. In the morning he got up and had a good breakfast with butter, as is typical of lovers and he went out.

�Why did you make that noise?� she says to her husband when the bandit goes. �He would have killed us for the noise you made.�

�Oh, I, your husband, I simply pretended to be a calf and what�s the matter with that? I did the right thing for your sake.� (He knows the truth but pretends.)