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ISSN: 2397-9607 Issue 424 In this 424th issue of the Baba Indaba’s Children's Stories series, Baba Indaba narrates the Japanese Legend, "THE DRAGON of GHENT”. AT ONE side of the Place Saint Bavon in the centre of Ghent, Belgium, rises the impressive carillon tower with its fifty-two singing bells. A long, long, time ago, a dragon began living on the top of the tower. Before then the dragon lived near Aleppo, one of the chief cities of the Saracens in northern Syria. He was such a tender-hearted old dragon that he was called The Weeping Dragon, because he wept large bucketfuls of tears whenever the Belgian crusaders and the Saracens fell to fighting as they were wont to do in the 7th and 8th Centuries. Where his tears fell the soil became unusually fertile, and there soon grew up, from this rich soil, a rare flower – the tulip. A soothsayer, of ages past, had predicted that, if the Saracens and Belgians should ever stop fighting, the tears of The Weeping Dragon, whose name was Buccoleon, would dry up and his brown scales would turn to scales of pure gold. So it proved. For, when all the wars had come to an end, the dragon no longer felt like weeping, and his sombre, brown scales were gradually replaced by gleaming scales of gold. Now, one afternoon, as Buccoleon lay in the sun with his glittering scales, he decided it was time to return home. What happened next you ask…? Well, as you would expect in these circumstances, many things happened. To find the answers to this question, and any others you may have, you will have to download and read this story to find out! ------- Baba Indaba is an old 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. HINT - use Google maps. It is our hope that in looking up these place names, using Google Maps, that young people will be able to see images and read about other peoples and cultures from around the world. Through this activity, it is our hope that young people will not only increase their world geography but also increase their understanding and tolerance of other people and cultures. INCLUDES LINKS TO DOWNLOAD 8 FREE STORIES BUY ANY of the BABA INDABA CHILDREN’S STORIES at https://goo.gl/65LXNM 10% of the profit from the sale of this book will be donated to charities. ================== KEYWORDS/TAGS: Baba Indaba, Children’s stories, Childrens, Folklore, Fairy, Folk, Tales, bedtime story, legends, storyteller, fables, moral tales, dragon of ghent, Buccoleon, Belgium, Flanders, low lands, low country, Taff, Aleppo, tulips, tower, Carillion, garden, scales, bell, Saracens, Muslim, moslem, Weep, tears, Danube, Flew, crusaders, victory, gold, Nyken, fly, flew, Constantinople, Nuremburg, fighting, Archers, flowers, potter, Turban, castle, turk, belfry, leader, Vienna, marsh, weather, vane, Charlemagne, tender-hearted, watchtowers, goldsmith, soothsayer, fortune teller, moonlight, fifty-two, 52, ISTANBUL, champion, knightly, Bosporus, Mynheer, mister, sir, Marmora, Clouds, babies, Syria, Assyria, Bugle, Horn
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
A Belgium Fairy Tale
Baba Indaba Children’s Stories
Published By
Abela Publishing, London
2018
THE DRAGON OF GHENT
Typographical arrangement of this edition
©Abela Publishing 2018
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Abela Publishing,
London, United Kingdom
2018
Baba Indaba Children’s Stories
ISSN 2397-9607
Issue 424
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Website:
www.AbelaPublishing.com
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.
Location of KwaZulu-Natal (shaded in red)
This next story was told to him by a traveller who hailed from the town of Saraylar. Can you find Saraylar on a map? What country is it in?
A Fairy Tale from Belgium
A story, a story
Let it come, let it go
A story, a story
From long, long ago!
Umntwana Izwa! Children Listen!
Umntwana, children, this story is from a long, long time ago and far, far away, from small European country. In ancient times it was part of the Holy Roman Empire and was also ruled over by Napoleon Bonaparte. It is bordered to the North by ancient Frisia, to the South by ancient Gaul, and to the East by a land formerly known as Prussia. To the West lies the Septentrionalis Oceanus. The main rivers passing through this land are the Meuse and Scheldt Rivers.
Today we know this land as the Kingdom of Belgium.
Our story goes thus………
ONCE, UPON A TIME, long, long ago and far, far away, in the country of Belgium, AT ONE side of the Place Saint Bavon in the centre of Ghent, Belgium, rises the impressive carillon tower with its fifty-two singing bells. On the largest bell, which is taller than a tall man, is a Flemish inscription that reads:
"My name is Roland. When I toll there is fire.
When I ring there is victory in the land."
This great bell might vie with the horn carried by that other Roland, the knightly champion of Charlemagne--a horn that was heard twenty miles. On top of the belfry, is a weather vane, of dragon shape, that presides over all the winds, hot or cold, and rejoices when Roland rings.