Ethiopian Folktales

Narrator Unknown

In one village there was a man and a woman and they had one daughter and her parents ordered the girl to make the cattle drink water around the village. The girl took the cattle to the spring, but it was very disturbed and unclear. She had a problem and didn’t know what to do.

Her father came, and then the demon of the spring came out of the water and said, “If you want your cattle to drink good water you must give me your daughter.”

So the man agreed that later he would give her.

They went home and the father said, “Oh, I have lost one of my shoes in the river. Go and find it by the edge of the water.”

The devil came out and said (a poem):
“You beautiful girl
With long hair and big breasts
I am coming to take you away.”

She began running home. When she got home, the door was closed.

She said, “Oh father, there is one creature who says, ‘With long hair and big breasts’, he is coming towards me! Please open the door!”

But the father refuses to open the door and let her in. She runs to her aunt’s and says the same poem. But she refused to open the door since she was frightened.

She went to her friend’s house. She says the same poem to her best friend. Her friend opens the door.

The friend gave her an edible flower and said, “When you go home, pick the petals one at a time, eat one and throw one. Eat one and throw one.”

And the devil was distracted by the petals.

So she went to her grandmother and started living with them. Finally she became owner of forty dogs and her parents came to visit her and the name of the girl was Almaz.

Her grandmother said, “Almaz, your parents have come to visit you.”

So they came in and Almaz says:
“My father, my mother.
You gave me to a devil.
Bark, my forty dogs.”

So the dogs started barking and bit the parents and ate them.

The aunt also came another time and repeated the same.

"My aunt,
You gave me to a devil.
Bark my forty dogs."

She, too, was eaten.

Lastly the friend came and when Almaz heard her friend had come she welcomed her.

"My friend, my friend,
The saviour of my life.
Don’t bark my forty dogs.”

(The narrator added this couplet, which is the usual ending to a story in Tigray:)

If you forget this story,
May death forget you.