Ethiopian Folktales

Narrated by Oesha Tushklo

A thunderstorm spirit lost his sheep and started to look for him. It was raining hard and so, looking for his sheep, the spirit of thunder came to a lizard and he asked her if she had seen his sheep.

“No, I haven’t seen him. I’ve only been here basking in the sunshine because I was cold in the rain.”

“So what do you advise me? How could I get my sheep? Who could have stolen it?”

She tells him, “Go to the woodpecker. She may tell you what she knows.”

He went to the woodpecker and asked her, “I have lost my sheep. Have you seen it?”

The woodpecker said, “I have only been doing my job here, pecking. I haven’t seen it.”

“So what shall I do now to get my sheep?” the thunder asked.

“Go to the chameleon,” the woodpecker answers. “Whenever he sees other animals he hides himself. I think it’s because he’s done something bad. He feels guilty.”

So the thunder thought, “Well, I can understand if he’s hiding because he’s stolen or poisoned my sheep.”

And so he went to the chameleon.

The moment he reached the chameleon, he called, “Come out, chameleon!” but the chameleon hid behind a tree.

The thunder went round the back of the tree to find him, but the chameleon hid himself in the forest.

The thunder found him.

“So you are the one who stole my sheep. You may have eaten him or poisoned him.”

And the thunder tore him apart.

To this day, when thunder and lightning come, there is a saying in Male, “Don’t go and stand under a tree when there is lightning, because it is looking for the chameleon in the trees who stole his sheep.”

The moral is, don’t be like people who do bad things and hide themselves.