Somali Folk Tales and Stories

[Veteran]

ABBA BUKKUSH​

A long time ago, there lived a person called Abba Bukkush. He was a jolly fellow. He used to make the king laugh very much, so the king called him Abba Bukkush, which means 'Father of Laughter'. Abba Bukkush always sat beside the king.

Then one day he said to his friend, “The king is a very good man but when one man called Afewerke made mistakes, the king didn’t punish him. He should have given him some sort of punishment.”

Abba Bukkush’s friend went to the king and told him what Abba Bukkush said.

Then the king said, “Aha, so he has started to show disrespect for me,” and he was very angry with Abba Bukkush.

He ordered three of his soldiers to go to Abba Bukkush’s house and shit on his mattress.

So the soldiers went to Abba Bukkush’s house and said, “We have been ordered to shit on your mattress.”

So they brought the mattress out of the house and started to prepare themselves to shit.

At this time Abba Bukkush brought a big stick and said, “The king has only ordered you to shit on my mattress but he has not ordered you to pee. So if I see a drop of pee on my mattress I will beat your heads with this stick.”

The soldiers were confused and frightened since they couldn’t do one without the other, so they went back to the king and told him the story.

So the king was amazed and began to laugh and ordered his soldiers to take him some gifts.

 

[Veteran]

THE FOX AND THE SCALES​

A long time ago there lived two monkeys together. One day they went out to search for food and found something to eat. They began to quarrel over the food.

They said, “Let us go to the fox and let him judge us,” and they went to the fox.

The fox, after hearing the case, said, “I will have to use the scales so that I can divide the food into two equal pieces. Unfortunately I don’t have the scales with me now. I have lent it to the lion this morning. Let us go to the lion and divide the food.”

So they went to the lion’s cave. At the mouth of the cave, the fox called out to the lion and told him the story.

He said, “Lion, make peace between the monkeys.”

But then the fox went back without entering the cave, and he picked up the food the monkeys had found and ate it himself. Meanwhile, the two monkeys began to tell their stories to the lion. But the lion had no intention of judging their quarrel. He wanted to eat them, so he ate them.

 

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THE BRIDE’S TEST​

Once upon a time there was a boy who wanted to elope with a girl. He loved her and she was willing to go with him, but her parents would not accept the marriage. So the boy took a friend as a companion and they set out at night to go to the place where they could be married.

They walked the whole night and in the morning she said, “Let us have breakfast.”

Now there was nothing to eat. Her fiancé didn’t understand her.

“Why? You know there’s nothing here to eat,” he said.

But the best man understood her meaning, and said, “No, the lady means we have to brush our teeth, which is a kind of breakfast. We have nothing to eat.”

“Really?” the young man said to his fiancée. “Is that what you meant?”

“Yes of course it was,” she said impatiently.

This was her first test.

So they went on, but at midday they were very tired.

She said, “We’re tired. Let’s rest.”

So they all sat under a tree. The girl and the best man took their shoes off, but the young man kept his shoes on.

“Take a rest!” the girl said.

“But I am resting!” the young man said.

“How stupid he is,” thought the girl, “How can he rest with shoes on his feet?”

The best man said, “The lady means take your shoes off, because you can’t rest properly with them on.”

The third test happened when they arrived at a village, where the people invited them to eat meat with them.

When they had eaten, the girl said, “Let’s pull out the remaining meat.”

“What? What do you mean?” the fiancé said.

“Oh,” thought the girl. “How stupid this man is.”

But she said nothing.

Then the best man picked a twig and began to pick his teeth.

“This is what she means,” the best man said.

“Oh really?” said the young man. “Is that what you mean? I didn’t understand.”

“You don’t understand anything,” the young woman said.

At last they came to the house where the sheikh was ready to marry them. But the girl refused.

“I don’t like this man,” she said. “I want to marry his friend, if he will marry me.”

The moral of the story is, always choose a best man who is less clever, less handsome and less rich than yourself.

 

[Veteran]

HIRSI AND KABAALAF​

Part 1

Once there were two thieves, one called Hirsi and the other called Kabaalaf. They lived in adjacent towns and were both famous in their own town. Each one knew of the other.

One day each of them tried to go to the other town to cheat people. One took a sack of ash on his horse to sell as flour, and the other took a sack of goat’s dung, to sell it as coffee. On the way they met.

“Oh, how are you?”

“Are you well?”

“Are you on your way to market?”

“Yes.”

“What do you have?”

“A sack of flour.”

“That’s funny. A sack of flour is just what I want. I have a sack of coffee.”

“That’s amazing! Coffee is what I want. We don’t need to go all the way to the market. Aren’t we lucky! Let’s just swap.”

When they get home, they both took their sacks to the market to sell the contents. Then they each realised they’d been cheated.

This shows that cheats will be cheated in their turn.

Part 2

One day Hirsi and Kabaalaf met and planned a con trick. They noticed a woman with a pot of butter on her head, pulling a ram with a rope. Both her hands were busy.

One went ahead of her and sat down, pretending to be blind and began to plead, “Is there anyone here who can guide me where I want to go?”

“Oh, the poor blind man,” the woman said, and she came up to him and said, “Oh, I’m sorry for you. You are blind. I would like to help you but both my hands are full, one with the rope and ram, and the other with the jar of butter. So I can’t help you.”

“Oh, but you can,” the thief said. “Give me the rope and I’ll pull the ram. Then take my stick with that hand and guide me where I want to go.”

“That’s a good idea,” she said, and she took his stick and gave him his rope.

After a while the other thief, following, took the rope off the ram’s neck and took it.

The pseudo blind man said, “Oh, the rope is light now. What happened?”

The woman looked back and saw that her ram had gone.

“Oh, I didn’t feel anything. Just that the rope became very light.”

“What shall we do now?” the woman said.

“Why don’t you go back and look for the ram and I’ll look after your butter for you?” the thief said.

So she agreed and went to find the ram, and the thief ran off with the butter.

Then the two thieves met in the bush with the ram and butter. They ate them, but they both fell very seriously ill.

“What happened to you?” everyone said.

“Oh, we’ve done a bad thing. We took a ram and a pot of butter from a woman going to market. Maybe she has children who are hungry. We are very sorry that now we are about to die.”

The moral is that even if you are not punished by man, God will punish you.

 

[Veteran]

THE CLEVER WOMAN AND THE SHEIKH WHO MAKES MISTAKES​

Once there was a sheikh who was drawing water up from the well for the village people. One of the village women he loved, but she was married.

When she sent her son to the well, he said, “No, you can’t take the water. You’re too small. Send your mother to fetch the water.”

So at last, she came. Then he started to flatter her cleverness and beauty. At last she fell in love with him, but she didn’t tell anyone how she felt, and grew silent and thoughtful. She just walked back to her house.

She decided to discuss it with her husband.

She said, “I think this man likes me, and he wants me to agree to meet him secretly. I didn’t know what to do, so I decided to tell you so that we can get out of this problem without a fight or a scandal, since I am a married lady. We must discourage him, but how?”

So they talked for a long time, and they decided she must go outside and tell him the husband has gone away and she can be with him all evening and all night. Then, as soon as the sheikh has come, her husband must come home and will knock at the door, which she will have locked. At once the wife will dress the sheikh in women’s clothes to pretend he is a woman.

So the woman went to the well to get water. As soon as he saw her the sheikh begged her to meet him alone.

She’d never answered him before, but this time she said, “A great person has many eyes, which means he can understand everything. So I have understood what you want. I was silent up to now because my husband was present, but now he’s gone away. Now’s our chance. Come to me, and we can talk and do whatever we like.”

The sheikh was very happy and excited.

“When can I come?” he said.

“Come as soon as you’ve said your evening prayers,” she said.

He agreed at once, but then he grew thoughtful.

“What can I say to my wife?” he thought. “I never go out in the evening. I must give her a good reason or she will suspect something.”

At last he decided to tell his wife he would be out till ten o’clock that evening.

“Why?” said his wife. “This is extraordinary. You never go out at night.”

But he said, “There’s a verse in the Koran which is very hard to translate, and since I’m a sheikh, people have called me to a meeting to explain it to them.”

“Oh, that’s good,” she said. “If it’s about religion, of course you must go.”

So off he went to the woman’s house. As soon as he entered, she put down the beautiful mat and gave him tea. Before he had finished his tea, she locked the door.

As she had agreed with her husband, as soon as she locked the door, he knocked and shouted, “Wife! Wife! I couldn’t get a bus, so I’ve come back.”

As soon as the sheikh heard that the husband had been unable to leave, he was shocked.

The wife whispered, “We’re in trouble. My husband has come back.”

“What shall we do?” he said.

“I know,” she said. “Put on my dress and I’ll hide you. So if he asks who’s talking, I’ll say it’s a housemaid I have."

So she gave him the dress and he put it on and she opened the door. And she wrapped her scarf round her face and pretended to be very shy.

The husband came in and said, “Wife, I have brought you some maize, a sack of it.”

“Oh, how lovely!” said the wife.

“You’re lucky,” the husband said, “that the housemaid is here because the maize has not been pounded, and there is so much of it. Bring the mortar and pestle and let her start pounding.”

So the sheikh started to pound. The man sat close beside him and the sheikh had to keep his back turned and go on pounding. He had to go on and on, and pound the maize.

“Why won’t this husband go away?” he said. “I’m so tired of pounding all this maize.”

He went on and on until all the maize was pounded and, as soon as he had finished, the wife said, “Well done, you’ve done well. You can go.”

So the sheikh rushed home, but he was still in a woman’s dress. His wife was shocked.

“Oh! You are wearing a woman’s dress. You know the Koran says that for a man to wear a woman’s dress is a great sin.”

“Oh, I couldn’t help it,” the sheikh said. “We were discussing the verse in the Koran which calls Satan the evil one, and he came himself. At once he began to beat everyone, and luckily there was a woman’s dress near me and I put it on, and even Satan would be ashamed to beat a woman, so he let me run away.”

“Oh,” the wife said, “then you did very well to escape, even if you had to wear a woman’s dress.”

The next day, at the well, the woman came to the sheikh again and said, “My husband is going away tonight. I’m sure he will have gone, so come to my house.”

“Oh no,” said the sheikh. “I don’t want to pound maize all evening. If I want to do that, I have plenty of maize at home.”

 

[Veteran]

THE HANDSOME BOY’S DREAM​

Once there was a boy who was very handsome, but he was very poor and worked as a porter. Sometimes he had food and some days he had nothing to eat. One day, when he was very hungry, he was working in a store, carrying the goods, and he begged for some money to buy food.

The storekeeper said, “You’re so handsome, you don’t need to work like this. I wish I could buy your good looks. You could use your good looks to get money from women.”

“What? Is that possible?” said the boy.

“Of course it is,” said the storekeeper.

“No!”

“Yes!”

“Anyway, will you give me money for food?”

“No. Find a woman who is rich and spend the night with her and get money like that.”

“Are you really encouraging me to do such things?”

“Yes. Help yourself as best you can, but don’t beg like this.”

So that afternoon, the storeman’s wife called, “Porter! Porter!”

And the boy came with his barrow.

The wife said, “Take these goods to my house.”

The boy did so, and as soon as he brought them to her house she said, “You are a handsome boy and I like you. Come this evening and I will give you some money.”

Then the boy went back to the storeman and said, “You were right. This very afternoon a woman called, ‘Porter!’ and when I went to her house she gave me money and told me to come back in the evening.”

“Who was this woman? Where’s her house?” said the storeman.

The boy told him, and the storeman realised that the woman was his wife, but he didn’t say anything.

“Do as she says,” he told him. “Go to her house.”

So the boy went. The woman was ironing clothes. But as soon as the boy had gone in, the husband knocked on the door. At once the woman hid the boy under the box on which she was ironing and she opened the door. The husband, suspecting the boy was there, hunted everywhere but he couldn’t find him.

“Someone’s here! Someone’s here!”

But he couldn’t find him. At last he went out and the boy came out from under the box and ran away.

Early the next day the storeman called the boy and said, “Did you go to that house like you said you would?”

“Yes,” said the boy, “but as soon as I went in, before I had the chance to do anything, the husband knocked. At once she hid me under the box on which she was ironing. Her husband hunted and hunted, but he couldn’t find me, and as soon as he’d gone I came out and ran away.”

“Are you going again?”

“Yes.”

And the boy told him when.

The same thing happened again but this time the wife hid him in the barrel of water, and on top of it she put the tub in which she was washing the clothes. Then she opened the door and the husband hunted and hunted, but couldn’t find the boy.

And the woman called all her neighbours and said, “My husband’s gone mad. He did this last night and now he’s doing it again.”

No one found the boy and at last the husband went away and the boy jumped out of the barrel and escaped.

In the morning he saw the boy.

“Did you go there?”

“Yes, and the husband came and she shouted to all the neighbours and there was a terrible quarrel, but I was hiding in the water barrel.”

“Are you going tonight?”

“Yes.”

So the boy went again, and this time he was hidden in her mother’s clothes box. The man hunted everywhere but he couldn’t open his mother-in-law’s box.

“I’ll burn the whole house down,” he said.

His wife said, “Go ahead and burn the house down. It’s yours. But you may not burn my mother’s box.”

“Let me open it and look inside.”

“No, the keys are with my mother.”

“I’ll break it open then.”

“Break it? Of course you can’t break it.”

So he went out, and the boy escaped.

In the morning the man asked the boy, “Did you go last night?”

“Yes. I was in the box, and they were quarrelling and all the neighbours came, and he said he would burn the house.”

“Are you going tonight?”

“No. The woman was angry and she left her husband and she’s gone to her parents’ house saying, ‘ I cannot live with this man.’”

The storekeeper said, “Come with me. I have a job for you.”

So the storekeeper took the boy to his wife’s mother’s house to bring back his wife. The boy waited outside and began talking to the people there. He told them all the amazing things that had been happening to him up to where he was in the box. Then the woman came out of the house and he looked up and saw her. And she knew he was talking about her, and she gave him a sign.

And as soon as he saw her, he understood, and at once he said, “As soon as she shut me in the box, I woke up.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was dreaming!”

“Really? Is it possible to dream all these things?” they said.

“Yes.”

So they went to the man, and said, “Listen, this boy has told us everything and it was all a dream. How could you take it so seriously? You are a mad man.”

 

[Veteran]

HOW THE CAT BECAME THE WOMAN’S FRIEND​

At the beginning of the world, the cat was the friend of the antelope in the bush. But once the lion came to the bush and fought and killed the antelope. So the cat thought the lion was better, and became a friend of the lion. But then a group of elephants fought the lion and the lion was killed, so she became the friend of the elephants. Then she saw a man kill an elephant.

“Oh, this is better than the elephant,” and she became the friend of man.

As soon as the man went into his house there was a quarrel with his wife, and his wife ran at him with a stick, shouting, “Where have you been?”

And she shouted many bad things to him. So the man ran away.

“Oh,” said the cat, “the woman is stronger than the man.”

So she became the friend of the woman.

 

[Veteran]

HOW THE DOG BECAME MAN’S FRIEND​

Adam was in the garden of Eden, and when he came out into the world, all the animals wondered, “Who is this new animal who has two legs?”

“He has two legs only! He has two hands, like the monkey, but he is different from the monkey.”

They wondered and said, “What does he want from us? Can he live peacefully with us? How will it be?”

So they decided to send a dog to talk to him. So the dog accepted and approached Adam.

“You, man,” he said, “New animal, we are wondering if you will join with us on the earth and live peacefully? Or do you want to fight us?”

“I want to live peacefully,” said the man. “I am new and I have come from the garden, and I want to live with you.”

“Oh, that’s good news,” said the dog, and he started to run back to the other animals to tell them. As he went, he ran fast.

When the other animals saw that he was running, “Oh,” they said, “Adam is chasing him, so we have to run away.”

All the animals tried to run away. So the dog, trying to tell them not to run away, shouted, “Waf! Waf! Stop! Stop!”

But the other animals were afraid and kept on running. The dog soon got tired, and went back to the man, and from that time the animals have run away from man. But the dog became the friend of man and the dog says, “Wuf! Wuf! Stop! Stop!”

Also, Adam thought the animals didn’t want him, and he began to see them as enemies and hunted them, and he asked the dog to remain with him to guard him.

 

[Veteran]

HOW THE DOG BECAME MAN’S FRIEND (2)​

The dog is made of the human’s umbilical cord. The woman likes the man because she’s made of his rib. The man likes land because he’s made of dust, and that’s why men always fight over land.

 

[Veteran]

THE DOG, THE GOAT AND THE DONKEY​

Once there was a dog, a goat and a donkey who wanted to travel to another country. So they got on the bus. The dog had ten shilling(the main unit of currency in Somalia). The donkey had five shillings, but the goat had no money.

The bus ticket cost five shillings. But when the dog gave ten shillings to the conductor, he didn’t get any change. Because the goat had no money, she tried to hide herself in the bus. But the donkey paid his five shillings. When the bus arrived at its destination they all got off.

The dog always runs after the bus shouting, “Give me my five shillings! My five shillings!” The goat runs away from the bus, saying, “The conductor will ask me for my money.” But the donkey doesn’t move. He’s already paid his five shillings and he feels quite safe and happy.

 

[Veteran]

THE LION, KING OF THE ANIMALS​

Once there was a lion, a hyena, a fox and the other animals. When they were going in the forest, they were hungry but they saw a very fat camel. So the lion, being the king of the animals, jumped on the camel and killed it in the neck. We know that lions don’t like to eat the meat. They suck the blood away from the neck. So when he sucked the blood, the rest of the dead camel lay on the ground.

So the lion went to the others and said, “Let’s share it.”

Then the hyena said, “I’ll divide it. Let’s divide it into two equal parts. One half should be for the lion and the other half for all the other animals.”

Then the lion was angry and gave him a slap on the face and killed him. All the other animals were shocked.

So then the lion called the fox and said, “You divide it.”

So the fox thought for a long time. He didn’t want to get a slam like the hyena.

So he said, “Take it all. Take the whole camel.”

So the lion was very happy.

“Who told you how to divide it?” he said. “You divided it very well.”

The fox said, “The slam you gave to the hyena taught me how to divide it.”

All the other animals were angry.

“You are stupid, you are nothing. Why did you give it all to the lion?”

He said, “You are stupid. If I had given any to us I would be dead like the hyena.”

 

[Veteran]

THE MOTHER OF SONS​

Once there was a man with two wives in Puntland. His first wife had only girls, but the second wife had only boys. Since the second wife had boys, he liked her and he called her “many poles” (to hold up the roof). But the other he called “woman with house”. Both of them lived side by side. The hut on the right by tradition is the hut of the first wife and the less important wife’s hut is on the left.

So he also closed the door of the first wife, and said, “You have to use the door of the second wife.”

He did this to encourage the second and discourage the first. Then he moved her from the right position on the land to the left. So the priority was given to the second wife.

They were nomads. When she had delivered seven girls and the other had delivered two boys, they had to move from that place as there was no rain and no grass. The man took the horse and the second wife and moved with her to a better place, leaving his first wife and seven daughters alone. He wanted them to die. Let them die.

They were alone, as the whole village had left. But fortunately the rain started at that very place and the grass grew, and they had a few goats and sheep and they lived healthily because God helped them.

The man, according to tradition, goes off and surveys for good grass. Then he comes back to his family and moves them to the new place. While he was searching, he came back to the old place, and found it had rained and there was water and new grass. And it was night, so he didn’t recognise that it was the place where he had left his first family.

He shouted, “Who is living here?”

And his daughter said, “It’s us, your children. Don’t you know us?”

“Oh, you’re here. And you had rain, and you have grass!”

“Yes, we have. So please come in. It is raining. I will make a fire and warm you.”

Then the father sat by the fire and the daughter came to the mother and said, “My father has come but he didn’t come to you. He said only. 'That woman delivers nothing good.' But God may still give you a son. Since he’s alone and he’s not with his second wife, if he wants you don’t be angry. So clean your body and use your perfume.”

So the woman prepared herself and he went to her house and slept with her and she became pregnant. But early in the morning the man went away back to his second wife and he moved her back near his first wife. He didn’t believe she could deliver a son and he didn’t wait for the delivery.

But the second wife saw the pregnancy and mocked and was cruel to the first wife, saying, “She cannot have a son and even this pregnancy is not legal.”

The husband didn’t want to upset his second wife so he didn’t admit he had slept with the first.

But the first wife’s daughter had advised her: "When my father sleeps, take off his ring and take one of his shoes, to prove he has been with you."

So when everyone in the village said, “He was far away and maybe she went with someone else,” the first wife could say, “No, he came to me and here is his ring and his shoe.”

So they admitted it was the husband’s pregnancy.

But the husband said, “Even if the pregnancy is mine, I know it’s a girl.”

And the time came to move. The wife was nine months pregnant and about to give birth. She needed help. But he left her again and went away with the horse and the luxury and the second horse. And the first wife and seven daughters were left alone by the whole village.

As soon as they all had gone, the woman gave birth to a boy. She was very happy. The husband had named his sons by the other woman by the name of the heir, the name he liked best, but she took that name and gave it to her son.

Then she started to go after the others and reached them.

She took a stove, and an iron and said, “The ground has to move and the sky has to move. I have delivered a boy called Durbananti, the one who inherits the land.”

The man saw it and went to his second wife and said, “Your son is no longer Durbananti. That name is for the son of my first wife.”

She was shocked and died.

 

[Veteran]

THE BOY LION OF FAFEN​

There was once a famous man-eating lion around Fafen. One day he came to the village and took a four or five year-old boy. He took him off into the bush without hurting him at all. And he dropped the boy near his den. The child ran away from the lion into the den where the cubs were living. The cubs didn’t hurt the little boy but began to play with him. And the lioness didn’t hurt him either.

Then when the lion and lioness brought meat for the cubs, the boy took the meat as well and ate with the cubs.

After several days, the lioness was hungry and wanted to kill the boy and eat him but the lion protected him and stopped her. Then he suspected that when he went off hunting people or cattle, the lioness might fall on the boy and eat him, so he didn’t leave the child, but put him on his back and the child rode on him to the bush. The lion put him down there and left him while he hunted for his family, and then when he went back the boy mounted him again and rode back. The lion always did this because he did not trust the lioness.

The cubs didn’t ever try to attack the boy. They were his friends.

The boy lived like this for two years. It happened in Fafen area. I have spoken to people myself who have seen the child.

Anyway, the child said his lion was the king of the lions because he didn’t trust any other lions or his own lioness.

"I was always sitting beside him, and when all the other lions came to his house they have a meeting, sitting around in a circle and discussing something in lion language. The other lions didn’t look at my lion. They just looked at me, and then he made a sign that they should be peaceful, and after that the lions didn’t look hungrily at me and did not try to eat me. "

So the child grew like this, and after two years the lions wanted to go hunting as a group, and the chief lion said to the others, “Wait for me,” and he took the child to the village where he had come from.

Near the village he dropped him and said, “Go home.”

So the child did, and when the lion saw he had entered his village he went back to the bush.

When the people saw the child they said, “Oh! We thought the child has been eaten already by the lion. But he was saved! How is it possible?”

And the child told them everything that had happened. That child is now a big person and he tells everyone his story.

 

[Faahiye]

@Sharmaarke,

HOW KABACALAF OUTWITTED HURYO

Once upon a time there was a very cunning man and a no less cunning woman. His name was Kabacalaf and hers was Huryo; each had a flock of sheep and goats, a stud-camel and a big house. One day Kabacalaf drove his livestock to a new pasture and came across Huryo.

'Woman, drive away your flock!' demanded Kabacalaf. 'Our sheep and goats may get mixed up. I would drive away mine but I don't have any helpers.'
'I don't have anybody who could help me either,' answered Huryo.
'And where are your kinsfolk?'
'My father and mother died and I don't have a husband.'
'Why?'
'Nobody has married me - my hands tremble a little.'
'Is that your only shortcoming?'
'Yes,' answered Huryo.

'Then marry me! Whatever is necessary I'll do with my hands,'
'First tell me why you aren't married.'
'I also have a shortcoming - I act before I think.'
'And I belong to those who think first and only then act,' said Huryo. 'So let's get married. You'll work with your hands and I'll work with my head.'
'That's settled,' said he.
Huryo and Kabacalaf put their livestock into a common enclosure and started to live together.

After some time Kabacalaf said to his wife:
'Let's have some meat.'
'Very well,' she agreed.
'Choose a fat ram and I'll slaughter it.'
Huryo entered the enclosure, chose one of Kabacalaf's rams and called her husband
'Come here! I'll hold the ram for you,' said she, although she had complained about her trembling hands.
'All right,' answered Kabacalaf. 'Bring me a knife from the house.'

As soon as Huryo went away Kabacalaf let his ram go and grabbed a ram from his wife's flock. When Huryo returned with the knife Kabacalaf cut her ram's throat.
Thus Kabacalaf outwitted Huryo who believed that he would act first and only then think.


HURYO DEMANDS HALF THE BOOTY

Once Kabacalaf looted somebody's camels and Huryo demanded half of them. The people said:
'Woman, did you take part in the raid?'
'No,' answered Huryo 'but I was working at home twice as hard while my husband was absent.'

A council was convoked and the elders said:
'Huryo is right.'
Kabacalaf had to part with half the booty and he got angry.
'Huryo,' he said, 'I didn't court you, didn't woo you and didn't pay bride-money to your father. Where did you come from to my misfortune?'
'Kabacalaf,' answered Huryo. 'I run your house, give birth to your children and look after your livestock. You have to thank God that I married you!'
From that time they never quarrelled, and they lived in peace and harmony to the end of their days.


Best,

Faahiye

 

[Veteran]

A Lesson of Tit for Tat

The camel and the fox were very good friends and very good thieves. One day, the two friends decided to cross the river so that they could travel to a nearby farm to steal food. The small fox could not swim so the camel said to his friend, ‘Climb up onto my back and I will swim across the river.’

And so the fox climbed up onto the camel’s back and the strong camel swam across the river to the other side.

When they had crossed the river, the camel and the fox made their way to the farm. When they finally arrived at the farm, the fox caught herself a chicken while the camel dug up some lovely fresh vegetables.

The greedy fox quickly gobbled down her chicken and then said to her friend the camel, ‘When I finish eating I am accustomed to singing.’

‘Do not sing just yet,’ said the camel as he was chewing on his dinner of vegetables. ‘I have not yet finished eating and if you sing then the farmer will hear you. Let me first finish my dinner and then you can sing as we make our way back home.’

But the fox did not pay any attention to her friend and began to sing at the top of her voice. The farmer soon heard this singing and came running out of his house waving a large stick.

‘I will teach you to steal from me!’ exclaimed the angry farmer.

Because the fox was so small and nimble, she was able to run away from the farmer. But the poor camel was very slow, and still in the middle of eating his dinner, and so he did not see the farmer until it was too late.

The angry famer set upon the camel with his large stick and the poor camel received many blows to his legs and back before he was finally able to escape.

When the camel reached the river, his bones ached and he was very upset with his friend the fox.

‘Why did you sing when you knew that farmer would hear you and you could see that I was still eating my dinner?’ asked the camel.

‘Because it is my custom,’ replied the fox in her matter-of-fact way. ‘Now let me climb upon your back so that we may return to our home across the river.’

Then the camel walked slowly down the riverbank into the water and began to swim across to the other side with the fox upon his back.

When the camel was halfway across the river, at the point where the water was at its deepest and the current at its fastest, he stopped swimming and said to the fox, ‘When I have finished eating I am accustomed to taking a bath.’

‘Do not take a bath!’ pleaded the fox. ‘I cannot swim and if you take a bath I shall drown!’

‘I am very sorry,’ said the camel, ‘but I always take a bath after I have eaten. It is my custom.’

And with that the camel lowered his back into the deep water until the fox lost her grip on his back and began to splash around helplessly against the fast current.

‘Help me!’ cried the desperate fox. ‘I am drowning, I am drowning!’

The camel asked the fox, ‘Are you sorry that you were so selfish and caused me to be beaten by the farmer?’

‘Yes, yes, I am truly sorry!’ cried the fox just before her head disappeared once more beneath the surface of the water.

The camel did not have the heart to watch his friend drown in the river and so he pulled the little fox out of the water and placed her upon his back. Then the camel swam the rest of the way across the river and climbed up the bank and onto the warm grass.

The fox realised that she had been very selfish and said to her friend, ‘I am so sorry for what I did and I promise that you can trust me forever and that is that.’

‘And I am sorry that I had to teach you a lesson today, but many times in life it is often a case of tit for tat.’

Then the two friends began to laugh and roll around in the warm grass while the sunshine dried their wet fur. The fox had learned a valuable lesson that day. She had learned that it was not good to betray a friend, and that if you do wrong by somebody then somebody might well do wrong by you. It was indeed a lesson of tit for tat.

 

[Nostalgia]

@Veteran Do you know the story about the boy Bacaalul? Don't know how it's spelled but his mother sends him to get items but he never makes it back with it, instead it is dead or broken.

 

[Veteran]

@Veteran Do you know the story about the boy Bacaalul? Don't know how it's spelled but his mother sends him to get items but he never makes it back with it, instead it is dead or broken.

I couldn't find anything about Bacaalul on the internet, ask your mother if it's correctly spelled.