Page:Folklore1919.djvu/594

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228
Thiry-Two Folk-Tales of Nigeria.

So the leopard killed her cubs, turn and turn about. When all were killed the dog said, “I have eaten all my children; I am going to the bush,” so the leopard agreed. But rain began to fall and wetted the leopard, and it came to the hole where the pups were; so it sat on the top and looked in and the pups growled and it saw them. Then the dog came with meat and explained that she had found her children again, and asked if the cubs had not been found. So she told the leopard to run quickly to the bush and she would find them, so the leopard ran and the dog went to the top of the rock and shouted: “Run, they are just in front.” Then she took the pups out of the hole.

Now in those days people had no dogs in their houses; but the dog took her pups and stayed with a man; she met a hunter and agreed with him. When the leopard went back to the hole she saw nothing. Before that time leopards never killed goats, so the leopard followed the dog and looked in at the door. Then the pups went out, and the leopard caught them and put its hand on them and took it away and smelt it, and said, “They don’t smell; the dog made a fool of me.” So since that day the leopard eats dog and leaves nothing, because it says the dog has no bones.

Ibie, Kukuruku Tribe.

xxx.

There were people called Ugbame, and one of them got a wife and made her dress her hair well, and they set out along the road. But a tornado came, and he said that rain must not fall on her hair; so he cut off his wife’s head and kept it; and the woman fell down on the road. So the man said: “Get up and go on”; but she said nothing, so he said, “Oh, well, you can lie there.” When his wife’s family came and asked where she was, he said that rain fell on her hair, and when he took her head off she lay down on the road and did not answer. So her family said: “When