Ethiopian Folktales

Narrator Unknown

There was a lady and she had three foolish but tall daughters. When she realised they were all foolish she begs God to give her a wise one, even if she’s a dwarf. God heard her prayers and she had a dwarf boy. She called him Sidrom (dwarf). Sidrom was very cunning and intriguing. He was troublesome to his foolish sisters.

One day, when they slept, Sidrom went into the house through a window and stole all their money. They found him out and planned to burn him in his house with his wife and son. While they planned this, he overheard them. He put three sour fruits in his house and took his son and wife away. They burned the house. The fruit exploded.

When the first fruit exploded they said, “Oh, it’s Sidrom.” With the second, “His wife.” With the third, “His son.”

Sidrom took the ash and put it in a bag and went away.

When he was travelling early in the morning he shouted and the neighbours ran out and said, “What’s the matter?”

He said, “My white tef (a cereal grown in Ethiopia) has changed to ash.”

The people said, “OK, but keep quiet. We’ll give you tef.”

And they filled his bag with tef.

He went to his new place and found his relatives and told them, “Because you burned my house I have changed the ash into white tef.”

They burned their own house and started roaming round with the ash in a bag.

“Anyone want to change ash with white tef?”

Everyone laughed at them. They went home.

So they planned to kill Sidrom.

Sidrom told his wife, “Have an empty tala pot^{A pot for making beer.} and close it tightly, and a pottery cooking pot and also prepare an empty pot and cover it with a beautiful cover and an injera^{Injera is a flat, round bread usually made from tef, a grain cultivated in the highlands of Ethiopia.} baking tray with a lid.”

Sidrom went to his relatives, who burned his house, to call them, but they were coming to kill him and they met on the road.

“Come and attend the religious ceremony in my house,” he said.

So they went to his house. They found all the dishes empty.

Sidrom was crazy. He took a knife and with the blunt side tried to cut his wife’s neck. She pretended to die and then woke up.

His relatives were surprised and said, “We must do the same to our wives.”

So they all went home and put knives to their wives’ necks, then said, “Get up.”

But the wives were dead.

Sidrom went to their houses and when he saw the dead women they said, “We did like you, but they won’t get up.”

He told them, “Because you took off their heads totally.”

They were nervous and said, “Let’s throw him into the lake.”

They put him in a big box and took him and from the box he said, “If you don’t eat your breakfast, you’ll die of hunger.”

So they left him at the edge of the lake and went back to eat breakfast. A passing priest saw the box and opened it and Sidrom was in it.

“What are you doing here?” said the priest.

Sidrom said, “I wanted to die and go to heaven.”

The priest gave his horse to him and said, “No, let me get in your box so that I can go to heaven.”

When he got back he found his relatives and they said, “What are you doing?”

“Because you planned to drown me in the lake I went down to the lake and came out with a horse.”

So they asked him to show them how to get a horse, and he took them to the lakeside and when the horse stood on the edge they saw the horse’s reflection and jumped in the lake and all died.