Ethiopian Folktales

Narrator Unknown

One man goes to the market to buy a donkey. He couldn’t get a donkey so bought seventy fleas. When he came home, one of the fleas flies though the window, instead of the door. While flying through the window the flea was broken. The man tries to skin the flea. For this purpose he asks help from seven people. They were all helping to skin the flea and it took them seven hours.

Then he took the skin of the flea and made a drum and put it outside to dry. A fly was coming from far away and it stands on the drum and now the drum has a very loud sound, and women in a far town heard the beat of the drum, and the women started ululation and other women in another town heard and started dancing, and the whole country danced.