Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/500

 466 So?nc Azotes on East African Folklore.

greatly desired a son consulted a imvalimu, who told them they could have one if they followed his directions, but warned them that he would be a spendthrift. The son was born, grew up, and by the time his education was finished had run through all his parents' property. They proposed, as no other course seemed open, to sell him ; he objected (no doubt on the same grounds as Euripides' Admetus), and suggested that they should be sold instead, to which they, after much demur, agreed. He took them to the Sultan and disposed of them in exchange for a suit of clothes, a dagger, a sword and a horse. He then set out on his travels, and was overtaken by a man carrying a letter to the Sultan of the next town. (This part was not. very clear: there may be some contamination with a Bellerophon motif.) The hero was induced to deliver the letter, and, proceeding on his way, came into a desert, where he was like to perish of hunger and thirst, but at last reached a well, near which lay a sheep just dead. Finding that the sheep had been about to give birth, he cut it open, killed the lamb, which was living, cooked and ate it. As there was neither rope nor vessel of any kind at the well, he untwisted his turban, let it down into the well and soaked it to quench his thirst. In doing this, he accidentally soaked the letter, spread it out to dry and, catching sight of the contents, saw that it was an order to kill the bearer, and destroyed it: after which he continued his journey, reached the city where the princess lived and became a suitor for her hand. He won the game of chess, and was then challenged to a riddle competition, succeeding at last by means of the question — insoluble to any one unaware of the circumstances : " Who is he who is wearing his mother and riding his father, who ate food (received) from a corpse and drank the water of death ? "

2. A man, when dying, gave his son three injunctions : To beware of an illegitimate child {inwatia wa haraviu), to marry into a good family, and not to give his sister in