Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/284

260 was on guard, and who slept every night on the Residency verandah, came and implored my husband to let him sleep inside the house, as Thokolosi was always in the garden at night, and he really was too frightened to stay outside. After about a week all was quiet again. Thokolosi had evidently taken himself off. My own impression is that Thokolosi is in all probability a very small Bushman employed by the witch-doctors, and that the superstitions about him have been originated and kept alive by these doctors to enable them to carry on their magic. The body is no doubt stained black to disguise the little creature.

The following is one of the folktales which my nurse girl translated for me. I have chosen this one to relate here as it in some ways tells of doings contrary to the national ideas of etiquette, inasmuch as the hero asks his father for a wife, thus breaking the rule universally acknowledged by the Basuto, i.e., that no youth must ever ask, save by signs, for a wife, nor must he so far forget the respect due to his father as to mention which maid he desires to marry. Both these rules are, as you will see, broken by Tsiu.

When the fathers of our fathers were children, there lived in the valley of the rivers two chiefs; the name of the one was Mopeli and the name of the other was Khosi.

Now Mopeli had a son whom he loved as his own heart, a youth tall and brave and fearless as the lion. To him was given the name of Tsiu. When Tsiu was able to stand alone and to play on the mat in front of his father's dwelling, a daughter was born to the chief Khosi, to whom was given the name of Tebogo. The years passed and Tsiu and Tebogo grew and thrived. Often Tsiu drove his father's