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- Herausgeber: Abela Publishing
- Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
- Sprache: Englisch
ISSN: 2397-9607 Issue 89In Issue 89 of the Baba Indaba Children's Stories, Baba Indaba narrates the Russian tale of THE CAT WHO BECAME HEAD-FORESTER. One day a forester sews his one-eyed, one eared cat into a hessian sack and takes it into the forest and throws it away. The cat escapes and goes on to achieve great things. Download and read this story to find out just what happened after that.Baba Indaba is a fictitious Zulu storyteller who narrates children's stories from around the world. Baba Indaba translates as "Father of Stories".Each issue also has a "WHERE IN THE WORLD - LOOK IT UP" section, where young readers are challenged to look up a place on a map somewhere in the world. The place, town or city is relevant to the story, on map. HINT - use Google maps.BUY ANY 4 BABA INDABA CHILDREN'S STORIES FOR ONLY $133% of the profit from the sale of this book will be donated to charities.INCLUDES LINKS TO 8 FREE STORIES TO DOWNLOADS
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
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THE CAT WHO BECAME HEAD-FORESTER
A Russian Folk Tale
Baba Indaba Children’s Stories
Published By
Abela Publishing, London
2016
THE CAT WHO BECAME HEAD-FORESTER
Typographical arrangement of this edition
©Abela Publishing 2016
This book may not be reproduced in its current format
in any manner in any media, or transmitted
by any means whatsoever, electronic,
electrostatic, magnetic tape, or mechanical
(including photocopy, file or video recording,
internet web sites, blogs, wikis, or any other
information storage and retrieval system)
except as permitted by law
without the prior written permission
of the publisher.
Abela Publishing,
London, United Kingdom
2016
Baba Indaba Children’s Stories
ISSN 2397-6907
Issue 89
Website
www.AbelaPublishing.com
Introduction
Baba Indaba, pronounced Baaba Indaaba, lived in Africa a long-long time ago. Indeed, this story was first told by Baba Indaba to the British settlers over 250 years ago in a place on the South East Coast of Africa called Zululand, which is now in a country now called South Africa.
In turn the British settlers wrote these stories down and they were brought back to England on sailing ships. From England they were in turn spread to all corners of the old British Empire, and then to the world.
In olden times the Zulu’s did not have computers, or iPhones, or paper, or even pens and pencils. So, someone was assigned to be the Wenxoxi Indaba (Wensosi Indaaba) – the Storyteller. It was his, or her, job to memorise all the tribe’s history, stories and folklore, which had been passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years. So, from the time he was a young boy, Baba Indaba had been apprenticed to the tribe’s Wenxoxi Indaba to learn the stories. Every day the Wenxoxi Indaba would narrate the stories and Baba Indaba would have to recite the story back to the Wenxoxi Indaba, word for word. In this manner he learned the stories of the Zulu nation.
In time the Wenxoxi Indaba grew old and when he could no longer see or hear, Baba Indaba became the next in a long line of Wenxoxi Indabas. So fond were the children of him that they continued to call him Baba Indaba – the Father of Stories.
When the British arrived in South Africa, he made it his job to also learn their stories. He did this by going to work at the docks at the Point in Port Natal at a place the Zulu people call Ethekwene (Eh-tek-weh-nee). Here he spoke to many sailors and ships captains. Captains of ships that sailed to the far reaches of the British Empire – Canada, Australia, India, Mauritius, the Caribbean and beyond.
He became so well known that ship’s crew would bring him a story every time they visited Port Natal. If they couldn’t, they would arrange to have someone bring it to him. This way his library of stories grew and grew until he was known far and wide as the keeper of stories – a true Wenxoxi Indaba of the world.
Baba Indaba believes the tale he is about to tell in this little book, and all the others he has learned, are the common property of Umntwana (Children) of every nation in the world - and so they are and have been ever since men and women began telling stories, thousands and thousands of years ago.
Where in the World – Look it Up!
This next story was told to him by a man who had travelled in the far east. He was told it by a storyteller from the port of Kyaukpyu. Can you find Kyaukpyu on a map? What country is it in?
THE CAT WHO BECAME HEAD-FORESTER
A Russian Folk Tale
A story, a story
Let it come, let it go
A story, a story
From long, long ago!
Umntwana Izwa! Children Listen!
If you drop Vladimir the cat by mistake, you know he always falls on his feet. And if Vladimir tumbles off the roof of the hut, he always falls on his feet. Cats always fall on their feet, on their four paws, and never hurt themselves. And as in tumbling, so it is in life. No cat is ever unfortunate for very long. The worse things look for a cat, the better they are going to be.
Well, once upon a time, not so very long ago, in a far, far, away northern land, an old peasant had a cat and did not like him. He was a tom-cat, always fighting; and he had lost one ear, and was not very pretty to look at. The peasant thought he would get rid of his old cat, and buy a new one from a neighbour. He did not care what became of the old tom-cat with one ear, so long as he never saw him again. It was no use thinking of killing him, for it is a life's work to kill a cat, and it's likely enough that the cat would come alive at the end.
So the old peasant he took a sack, and he bundled the tom-cat into the sack, and he sewed up the sack and slung it over his back, and walked off into the forest. Off he went, trudging along in the summer sunshine, deep into the forest. And when he had gone very many versts1 into the forest, he took the sack with the cat in it and threw it away among the trees.
"You stay there," says he, "and if you do get out in this desolate place, much good may it do you, old quarrelsome bundle of bones and fur!"
And with that he turned round and trudged home again, and bought a nice-looking, quiet cat from a neighbour in exchange for a little tobacco, and settled down comfortably at home with the new cat in front of the stove; and there he may be to this day, so far as I know. My story does not bother with him, but only with the old tomcat tied up in the sack away there out in the forest.
The bag flew through the air, and plumped down through a bush to the ground. And the old tom-cat landed on his feet inside it, very much frightened but not hurt. Thinks he, this bag, this flight through the air, this bump, mean that my life is going to change. Very well; there is nothing like something new now and again.
