The Baboons Who Went This Way and That: Folktales From Africa Read online

  The two wives were very angry with one another. They argued and shouted at one another and gave Morategi no peace. If anybody had visited that house during that time they would have been very surprised to hear that this was the house in which people used to get on so well with one another.

  Eventually Morategi could stand it no longer and he made a plan to stop this constant arguing about pots and pumpkins. He went to see a very wise traditional doctor and asked him to tell the wives that their husband had become very ill and that the only way in which his life might be saved was if they fed him immediately with a fine yellow pumpkin.

  When they received this message, the two women rushed to the hut where the pot was stored. Picking up two sharp stones which were lying about in that place, they smashed the pot and took out the pumpkin, which they cooked for their husband. Now there was nothing left to argue about, and they started to be polite to one another again.

  The husband ate the pumpkin, which tasted very good. Then he told the wives about his trick, and they all laughed. Happiness had returned to that household at long last, and all that it had cost was a pot.

  18

  The Miracle Tree

  There were children who lived in a small village by a river. Nothing very much happened in that village, and there was hardly ever any water in the river. But there was a special tree just outside the village, and this tree was unlike any other tree in the whole country. It was a miracle tree, and the people were very proud of it.

  ‘This may be a small village,’ they said. ‘But at least we have the miracle tree.’

  Then there came a big storm. The country had been parched and dry, with the land crying out for water, but now even the normally empty river in that village was a raging torrent. And in the sky there were heavy clouds, high and purple, and lightning that joined the sky to the land with great flashes and bangs.

  One of these bolts of lightning hit the miracle tree. When this happened, some of the branches on the tree burned up and the leaves on the tree all shrivelled. Afterwards, when the storm had passed, the land turned green with new grass. But the miracle tree remained black and shrivelled. It had no new leaves and it gave no fruit.

  The people were very sad about what had happened to their tree and many of the children cried because they missed the fruit that the tree had so generously given them. Nobody went near the tree for a long time, but then one day a child went there and she ran straight home after she had looked at the tree.

  ‘There is a woman living in the tree,’ she said to her mother. ‘She has only one eye in the middle of her head, like the light of a train.’

  The mother laughed at this child, and said that it was impossible that a woman should be living in the tree and also impossible that she should have only one eye in the middle of her head. But secretly the mother went to visit the tree and she saw that what the child had said was true. There was indeed a one-eyed woman living on top of the tree.

  For a long time nobody went near the tree, as they were all afraid of the strange woman who lived on top of it. But then the same child who had first seen the woman went back and she saw that the woman had died and that there was nobody living on the tree.

  Not long after that, after word had got out that the woman who lived in the tree had died, a family went to the tree and started to pick the fruit that was growing on it. To their surprise, the tree began to shake and then changed into a lion. They were very afraid, especially when the lion began to sing. The words of the song warned people not to try to pick the fruit of the tree.

  As they ran away, the people looked back and saw that the tree had changed again. Now it was a river!

  ‘This is really a miracle tree,’ said a small boy who had seen this. ‘First it was a lion and then it was a river. Perhaps it will be something else now.’

  He was right. When they looked back next, they saw that the tree had become a tree again.

  Many days later, another family passed by the tree and, seeing the fruit that it bore, started to pick some of it. This made the tree shake.

  ‘Look,’ shouted one of the children of this family. ‘There is a crocodile up in the tree.’

  The family ran away when they saw the head of the crocodile peering down at them. They did not go back to the tree again, and nor did anybody else. And from that time onwards, nobody in that village spoke about the miracle tree. They thought that it was better to be a quiet village where nothing happened, rather than a village where too much happened.

  19

  The Goat

  And The Jackal

  Goat and Jackal were very good friends. They were always to be seen eating together and telling one another stories. Goat would tell a story and jackal would howl with laughter. Then Jackal would reply with his own story and Goat would make a very strange sound that showed that he, too, thought this was very funny.

  When Goat invited Jackal one day to come and have dinner with him, Jackal was very pleased. Goat had said that he would have some very fine meat for them to eat, and Jackal liked to eat fine meat.

  Goat was a good cook.

  ‘This meat is very tasty,’ said Jackal, as he sat at Goat’s table, the plate of meat before him. ‘Is it the meat of a guinea fowl?’

  ‘No,’ said Goat. ‘It is the meat of a rooster.’

  ‘Then you must get me the chicks of this rooster so that I can eat them too,’ said Jackal.

  Goat laughed at this, and explained to Jackal that a rooster was a man and could not have chicks. Only women can have babies, he said.

  Jackal was very cross at being corrected and told Goat that unless she fetched the chicks of this rooster he would have to eat him instead. This made Goat very frightened, as jackal had powerful jaws and could easily eat him up if he wanted to. He tried again to explain to Jackal that a rooster could not have chicks, but his friend just became angrier and angrier and started to snarl at him, as if he was preparing to eat him.

  Then Hare came to Goat’s house and saw the danger that his friend was facing. Without delay he turned to Jackal and said that he could not stay to talk to him as he had to go to go and cook for his father, who had a small baby.

  Jackal turned to him angrily and said it was strange that he should say this as his father was a man and men did not have babies. ‘You must be strange in the head to say such a thing,’ said Jackal.

  Hare looked at Goat and gave him a wink. Jackal did not see this wink.

  ‘But you said exactly the same thing,’ he pointed out. ‘You said that a rooster could have chicks. You must be strange in the head too.’

  When Jackal heard this he was so embarrassed that he ran away. Goat turned to Hare and thanked him for saving his life. Then they both sat down and ate the last of the meat, which was very good.

  Also by Alexander McCall Smith

  The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series

  The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

  Tears of the Giraffe

  Morality for Beautiful Girls

  The Kalahari Typing School for Men

  The Full Cupboard of Life

  In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

  The Sunday Philosophy Club Series

  The Sunday Philosophy Club

  Short Stories

  The Girl Who Married a Lion

  The Girl Who Married a Lion (Illustrated)

  Heavenly Date and Other Flirtations

  a cognizant original v5 release october 04 2010

  Copyright

  This edition first published in Great Britain in 2006 by

  Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1TE

  This digital edition first published in 2009 by Canongate Books

  The following stories first published in

  The Baboons Who Went This Way And That in 2006

  ‘Chicken, Hawk and the Missing Needle’

  ‘Morategi and His Two Wives’

  ‘The MiracleTree’

  ‘The Goat and the Jackal’ />
  Copyright © Alexander McCall Smith, 2006

  The following stories first published in The Girl Who Married a Lion in 2004

  ‘Bad Uncles’

  ‘The Grandmother Who Was Kind To A Smelly Girl’

  ‘The Thathano Moratho Tree’

  Copyright © Alexander McCall Smith, 2004

  Other stories first published in Children of Wax in 1989 by Canongate Books Ltd

  Copyright © Alexander McCall Smith, 1989

  Illustrations copyright © Naomi Holwill, 2006

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available on

  request from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 84767 695 5

  www.meetatthegate.com