her anything.”
The charm woman heard that the tree had fallen off the man’s head and she sent a young boy to tell him to send her two cows. The man listened to the message which the boy brought, but all he did was beat the boy with a stick and send him home.
The next day, when the man was sitting in front of his hut drinking his beer, his wife came to him and looked at the top of his head.
“Another tree seems to be growing,” she said. “This time it looks very big.”
The man’s heart filled with despair. He could not face the thought of having a tree on his head again, and so he went back to the charm woman’s house.
“I have come for more medicine,” he said. “And I have brought those two cows I promised you.”
The charm woman looked at him and shook her head.
“You are a wicked man who does not keep his promises,” she said. “If you want me to cure you again and to stop that tree forever, you will have to pay me four cows.”
The man stamped his feet on the ground, but he knew that she was the only woman who could stop a tree from growing out of his head. Reluctantly he brought four cows and left them in front of her house. She gave him the herb and told him that he should always keep his promises, even if he thought that he had made a promise to a weak old woman. The man said nothing, but he knew that what she said was quite right.
13
The Grandmother
Who Was Kind To
A Smelly Girl
A beautiful girl had a very handsome makgabe, which is the apron worn by very young girls. This had been made for her by her grandmother, who was very kind to her. The grandmother had spent many hours weaving this makgabe for the girl.
The other girls in that place were jealous of that makgabe. Their own aprons were fine, but not so fine as the apron that that girl wore. They looked at her makgabe and thought that it would be better for them if they could get rid of it. But how do you take a person’s clothes when that person is wearing them? That is a very difficult thing, even for clever girls.
One morning the girls invited that girl to go swimming with them in a river nearby. When they arrived at the river bank, the other girls said that they would all need to take off their makgabes, as the cloth would be damaged if it got wet. So all the girls did this, including the girl with the very beautiful makgabe.
When they were all naked, they jumped into the water and splashed around for some time. Then they emerged and the leader of the jealous girls took the makgabe of that girl and threw it into the river, near a place where a very large snake lived on the river bank. Then all the other girls put on their makgabes and walked home, leaving that girl crying by the river, saddened by the loss of her beautiful apron.
The large snake heard her weeping and came out to see what was happening. When he saw this beautiful girl, he slithered out and swallowed the makgabe and the girl. Fortunately for her, the snake did not like the taste of the makgabe, and he spat both it and the girl out, leaving them lying on the bank covered with the slime which is to be found in a snake’s stomach. This slime smells very bad.
The girl put on her fouled makgabe and ran home to her parents, singing:
Mother, open the door for me, I am smelling;
Mother, open the door for me, I am smelling,
I am smelling very bad.
The mother heard this song and ran out of their house to sing back to the girl before she could come in:
Go away, you are smelling,
Go away, you are smelling,
Go away, you are smelling very bad.
* * *
The girl was very upset by this, and ran off to the house of her aunt and uncle. They heard her singing her song as she approached. They ran out, as had her mother, and sang the same song that her mother had sung, telling her to go away because she smelled so bad.
The poor girl then had only her grandmother’s house to go to. She set off in that direction, her heart heavy within her. It seemed as if nobody wanted