Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/361

Rh of yesterday have come", hence the popular Kaffir phrase for one who never returns, "like Guluwe's two of yesterday".

My friend told me the "story of the wonderful horns" as a local tale of East Griqualand. Mr. Theal had it as a Gaika legend among the people near Lovedale, and Dr. Hahn heard a version of it in Damaraland. The story runs as I heard it—in Mr. Theal's version the animal is a domestic ox—something to this effect: A very beautiful antelope came grazing near a village where a boy was herding cattle. It spoke to the boy and asked him to mount on its back. The boy did so, and then the creature galloped swiftly over the plain, till the boy's home was far out of sight.

Towards afternoon he felt hungry, and began to cry. He could not get off the creature's back, and concluded he was lost. He did his best to stop the animal, and at last struck one of its horns with a wand he had in his hand. Food came out of the horn, and he began to eat. It comforted him, so that he ceased to cry. At last he fell asleep, and when he awoke the sun was set. The antelope still galloped on, but now it was very fatigued and made hardly any progress. At last it lay down to die, but, before it expired, it spoke to the boy and asked him to take the horns and keep them all his life. This he did. When it was quite dark, he spoke to the horns, and a blanket came out of them, so he slept comfortably in the blanket. Whatever he fancied came out of the horns.

At last he came to a village where there was a girl he loved. She refused to marry him. He spoke to the horns, and they brought the girl to where he slept. He married her, and when he spoke to the horns, the ground was hoed for seed, and the pots were filled with beer. That boy became a great man, all by means of the wonderful horns.

Nearly allied to this is the story of the bird that made