Pass on the love of reading! Read this children’s story to a lucky young person.

This story was written and translated by the teller, Rena Katswata, in 2002. It is about a boy’s relationship with his parents and sisters. It also tells us to respect the brave behaviour of young women and to respect the dangers of the wild.

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There was once a San boy who waited for his father to return home from a hunting trip.

When his father came home without anything for the family to eat, the boy cried and cried. His parents went to sleep, but the boy sat next to the fire, tired, cross and hungry.

A wolf came along in the dark night. He put his head close to the fire and offered it to the boy to play with.

The boy shouted, ”Nde-de, Mba-ba, mother and father, come and look, here is something to hunt! Bring your bow and arrow. It is food!

His tired mother and father said:” Oh, eat it then if that is what you are waiting for at that fire!”

The boy grabbed the wolf’s head, but the clever wolf flung the boy across his shoulder and ran away.

The wolf walked to his cave in the mountain. He wanted to take the boy inside to his cubs. But the boy saw a tree with large roots protruding from the ground and grabbed hold of the roots with his hands. He held on very tight. The wolf could not pull him loose, so he decided to fetch his cubs from the cave and bring them to the boy.

While the wolf went to his cave, the boy ran away. He climbed into a high tree at the foot of the mountain to hide from the wolf.

The wolf tracked the boy’s footsteps to the bottom of this tree where the boy’s footprints stopped. The wolf looked up and saw the boy in the tree. He tried to get him down, but without success.

The boy stayed up in the tree until the sun came up.

In the meantime, his sisters went into the veld. They were on their way to gather food in the bush.

The sisters said: “What bird is this that sings like a human being? There is no such bird that sings in this way!”

One sister said: “Come, let us go and find it.”

When they arrived at the tree from where the singing came, they saw the boy in the tree. They saw the wolf. He was trying to climb up to grab the boy.

The sisters chased the wolf away and freed their brother. They carried him home.

From that day on, the boy never cried again when his father did not bring meat home to eat. He understood that men could not always find a buck to shoot every day. And he understood to treat his sisters with respect.

The boy never stayed up late at night next to the fire again.

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Thank you to the Manyeka Arts Trust for allowing FunDza to republish this story. To find out more about the Manyeka Arts Trust, visit: www.manyeka.co.za