Ethiopian Folktales

Narrated by Opiew Amwong

Once there were two people living in Itang village. They went to the forest of Obil to trap some animals. They set the trap for the animals on the path and the next morning, when they went to check it, they found that the trap had caught a lion, but the lion had broken the trap and escaped.

Now the lion was watching from nearby because he was very angry. He waited for them. He lay in wait and rushed at the hunters and chased them. They ran away from the lion and he went back to the bush.

As they returned to the village they said to themselves, “Don’t let’s tell anyone about this. They’ll laugh at us because we were defeated by a lion.”

They had lost everything they were carrying, their knives, their spears and their water gourds.

“They’ll think we are cowards,” they said.

But when they reached home, they went to the place where drinks were provided in the village under the big tree.

When they had drunk their fill, one of them stood up and said, “This morning we were chased by a lion and we lost everything.”

The second one touched his shoulder and said, “Stop. Please don’t tell everyone. Obil is dark.”

By this he meant that Obil is a big forest and it can keep many secrets.

This means that when you are defeated by fighting you must hide your defeat.