The Little Hare

Contes populaires des Bassoutos. Recueillis et traduits par E. Jacottet. Paris: Leroux, Editeur.

A long, long way off, in a land where water is very scarce, there lived a man and his wife and several children. One day the wife said to her husband, ‘I am pining to have the liver of a nyamatsane for my dinner. If you love me as much as you say you do, you will go out and hunt for a nyamatsane, and will kill it and get its liver. If not, I shall know that your love is not worth having.’

‘Bake some bread,’ was all her husband answered, ‘then take the crust and put it in this little bag.’

The wife did as she was told, and when she had finished she said to her husband, ‘The bag is all ready and quite full.’

‘Very well,’ said he, ‘and now good-bye; I am going after the nyamatsane.’

But the nyamatsane was not so easy to find as the woman had hoped. The husband walked on and on and on without ever seeing one, and every now and then he felt so hungry that he was obliged to eat one of the crusts of bread out of his bag. At last, when he was ready to drop from fatigue, he found himself on the edge of a great marsh, which bordered on one side the country of the nyamatsanes. But there were no more nyamatsanes here than anywhere else. They had all gone on a hunting expedition, as their larder was empty, and the only person left at home was their grandmother, who was so feeble she never went out of the house. Our friend looked on this as a great piece of luck, and made haste to kill her before the others returned, and to take out her liver, after which he dressed himself in her skin as well as he could. He had scarcely done this when he heard the noise of the nyamatsanes coming back to their grandmother, for they were very fond of her, and never stayed away from her longer than they could help. They rushed clattering into the hut, exclaiming, ‘We smell human flesh! Some man is here,’ and began to look about for him; but they only saw their old grandmother, who answered, in a trembling voice, ‘No, my children, no! What should any man be doing here?’ The nyamatsanes paid no attention to her, and began to open all the cupboards, and peep under all the beds, crying out all the while, ‘A man is here! a man is here!’ but they could find nobody, and at length, tired out with their long day’s hunting, they curled themselves up and fell asleep.

Next morning they woke up quite refreshed, and made ready to start on another expedition; but as they did not feel happy about their grandmother they said to her, ‘Grandmother, won’t you come to-day and feed with us?’ And they led their grandmother outside, and all of them began hungrily to eat pebbles. Our friend pretended to do the same, but in reality he slipped the stones into his pouch, and swallowed the crusts of bread instead. However, as the