[From Native Fairy Tales of South Africa by Ethel McPherson, 1919. See item #138
[From Native Fairy Tales of South Africa by Ethel McPherson, 1919. See item #138 in the Bibliography. The illustration is by Helen Jacobs.]
At the entrance to a kraal, a boy sat watching the sunset. He was thin and small. The other children were laughing and shouting, but he did not join in their play, for his heart was sore. He had had no supper, and the women of the kraal were all so busy looking after their own children that they had forgotten him. The boy’s mother had died when he was a babe, and ever since he had been driven from one hut to another. His father was out all day hunting and snaring birds, and when he came back at sundown, he seldom spoke to his little son.
“I will go away and never come back,” he said to himself. So when darkness settled over the land and all were sleeping, he rose from the ground and, going to the cattle-shed, he took one of his father’s oxen. Having mounted it, he rode out into the night.
He did not know where he was going, but he wanted to leave behind him all the women who were so cruel to him and who let him hunger.
When he was far from the kraal, he got down from the ox and lay under a tree. He slept until the sun came up again over the edge of the world. Then he continued his journey, rejoicing at being far away from those who had ill-treated him.
By and by, he noticed a cloud of dust on the horizon, and presently he saw that it was caused by the feet of a herd of cattle coming toward him. At the head of the herd was a great bull, fierce and strong of aspect.
“Get down from my back,” said the ox he was riding. “I am going to fight the bull, but have no fear, for it is I who will be the victor. ”
The boy dismounted and stood aside to watch the fight between the two strong beasts, who ran at one another with heads lowered and with angry bellowings, pawing the ground till they were hidden from sight in the cloud of dust raised by their trampling feet. The struggle was long and fierce, but at last the ox overthrew his foe, as he had foretold. Then he bade the boy mount again, and once more they went on their way.
As the day wore on, the boy grew hungry. The ox said to him, “Strike my right horn, and food will come forth.”
The boy did as he was commanded, and there came forth meat and drink, and he ate till his hunger was satisfied.
When he had finished his meal, the ox said, “Strike my left horn.”
The boy obeyed, and the food still remaining entered the horn.
All through the long hot day they journeyed across the veld till, when the sun was low, the boy saw another herd of cattle coming toward them, led by a bull even stronger than the one which they had encountered that morning.
Wearied with the long march and the struggle with his first foe, the ox walked with a slow and heavy tread. But he bade the boy once again dismount, saying, “I am going to fight with yonder bull. I shall be overthrown and death will take me, but have no fear. When I am dead, remove my horns and carry them with you wherever you go,