One of my childhood stories.
The Story of Booti: The Clever Daughter and the Naive One
Once upon a time, in a small Somali village, there lived a poor man with his two daughters. The older daughter was clever and quick-thinking, while the younger one was naive and often made foolish decisions. After the death of their mother, the father remarried, but his new wife was cruel and jealous of the girls. She saw them as a burden and pressured the father to abandon them.
Torn between his love for his daughters and the demands of his wife, the father made a terrible choice. One day, he took his daughters deep into the forest under the pretense of finding food. He told them to wait while he went to hunt, but he never returned. The girls soon realized they had been abandoned.
As night fell, the sisters wandered through the dark forest, scared and hungry. The older sister tried to reassure her younger sibling, but the younger one cried and complained, making it harder for them to focus. Eventually, they stumbled upon a cave. Inside, they found jars filled with delicious food—milk, honey, ghee, and more. The younger sister, overcome with hunger, immediately began eating, but the older sister hesitated. She sensed something was wrong.
"This food doesn’t belong to us," the older sister warned. "We should be careful."
But the younger sister ignored her and kept eating. Suddenly, they heard a loud, thunderous roar. The cave belonged to Booti, a terrifying monster who preyed on anyone who entered its domain. Booti was a giant with sharp teeth and a hunger for human flesh.
The older sister quickly devised a plan. She hid herself and her sister behind the jars, but the younger sister, in her panic, knocked over a jar, revealing their presence. Booti roared, "Who dares steal from me?"
The older sister stepped forward and said, "We are just poor, hungry girls. We meant no harm. Please, let us serve you instead of eating us."
Booti, intrigued by the older sister’s bravery, agreed but warned them that if they tried to escape, it would hunt them down and devour them. The girls were forced to become Booti’s servants, cooking and cleaning for the monster.
Over time, the older sister observed Booti’s habits and weaknesses. She noticed that Booti slept deeply after eating and always kept a large key around its neck. She guessed it was the key to the cave’s exit. One night, after Booti had fallen asleep, the older sister carefully took the key and tried to wake her younger sister.
"Come on, we have to leave now!" she whispered.
But the younger sister, scared and confused, hesitated. "What if Booti wakes up? What if we get lost?"
The older sister insisted, but the younger one’s indecision cost them precious time. Just as they were about to escape, Booti woke up and roared in anger. The older sister grabbed her younger sibling’s hand and ran, but Booti chased them.
As they fled, the older sister used her wits to slow Booti down. She threw a comb behind them, which turned into a dense thorny bush, and then a mirror, which turned into a vast, shimmering lake. Booti struggled to get through these obstacles, giving the sisters enough time to reach the edge of the forest.
Exhausted but alive, the sisters finally made it back to their village. Their father, who had been filled with guilt and regret, was overjoyed to see them. He apologized for abandoning them and vowed to protect them from his cruel wife. The older sister’s cleverness had saved them, and even the younger sister learned the importance of listening and thinking before acting.
They used to scare us back home to come home before it was dark or the hyena humans would come eat us. Though the one I feared the most was the old granny with long nails. Wallahi these stories worked on me.
