A young man of early race once ascended a hill in order to hunt. As he looked around for game, However, he became sleepy – so sleepy, in fact, that he decided to lie down. What had happened to him? He wondered, as he stretched himself out on the ground, near a water hole. Never before had he been thus overcome by sleep.

As he slept, a lion, exhausted by the noonday heat , came to the pool to quench its thirst. The lion espied the boy lying there asleep and seized him. Startled, the boy awoke and, realizing that he had indeed been seized by a lion, he decided that it would be best not to stir, lest the lion bite and kill him. So he waited to see what the lion would do, for it was clear that the animal thought he was dead.

The lion carried him to a zwart-storm tree. There it laid him in the tree, in the lower branches however, and in such fashion that his legs protruded. Apparently the lion thought he would continue to be thirsty if he consumes the boy’s body immediately and that it would be better first to go down to the pool and drink some more water.

Before leaving, the lion pressed the boy’s head firmly between the branches of the zwart-storm tree.

No sooner had the lion left than the boy moved his head ever so little. The lion noticed the movement, however, as he looked back, and was puzzled. How could the head move after it had been forced so firmly between the branches of the tree? Perhaps he had not fastened the boy securely enough.

Just then the boy fell over. So the lion returned and, once again, pushed the boy’s head into the middle of the branches of the zwart-tree. As he did so, tears came into the boy’s eyes and the lion licked them away.

The boy lay there in pain, for a stick was pressing into the hollow at the back of his head. He faced the lion steadily with closed eyes and turned his head just a little. To the lion it seemed again as if the boy had moved, and again he licked away the tears from the boy’s eyes. Puzzled, the lion trod once more upon the boy’s head and pressed it down in order to be certain that the head might have moved because the body had not been properly confined, and not from any other reason.

The boy, now fearing that the lion suspected that he was not dead, remained absolutely motionless, in spite of the fact that the stick was cruelly piercing his head.

The lion, finally satisfied that the body was now firmly and properly secured, moved a few steps away. Then he looked back. The boy opened his eyes ever so little and through his eyelashes watched what the lion was doing.

The lion then ascended the hill and was about to proceed down to the water on the other side.

The boy, on his part, turned his head gently, in order to see if the lion had really departed. But, as he did so, he saw the lion peering from behind the top of the hill. He had comeback to take one more look at the boy, for he had suspected that the boy might possibly be only feigning death. That is why he had reascended the hill to take one more look. Since, however, the boy still lay there immobile, the lion thought he might quickly run to the water hole, drink his fill, and return without delay to consume the body. The lion was hungry enough but also not a little thirsty.

All this time the boy lay there quietly watching to see the lion what the lion was going to do next. He saw its head and shoulders finally turn and disappear; but, before he made the slightest movement, he wanted to be absolutely certain that the lion had really gone and would not return to peer again over the hill. He knew that the lion is a thing of cunning and that the animal had been suspicious of the movement which his head had made.

The boy lay there a long time without moving, and only when he was positive that the lion had truly gone did he arise and spring forward to a different place. But he did this circumspectly, running in a zigzag direction, so that the lion could not smell him out and know where he had gone. That is why he ran this way and that and did not run straight toward his own house. He knew that when the lion returned and missed him, he would immediately seek for him, following this spoor.

As soon as the boy came to the top of the hill, he called out to his people that he had just been “lifted up” – while the sun had stood high, he had been “lifted up.” More he would not say. They went therefore to gather together all the many harte-beest skins they possessed so that they might roll him in them, for he had just been “lifted up,” while the sun had stood high. He wanted his people to do this, for he was certain that the lion, when it returned and missed him, would seek and track him out. It is the way of a lion, with anything it has killed, not to leave it until he has eaten it. So insistently the boy besought his people to get the harte-beest skins and the mats and roll him up in them.

The people thereupon did this for the young boy, for it was their hearts’ young boy who had made the request and they did not wish the lion to eat him. Accordingly, they hid well, in suck fashion as to prevent the lion from getting hold of him. Indeed, they loved this young boy greatly and they announced that they would cover him over with the huts’ sheltering bushes: all this they would do, to prevent the lion, when he arrived, from seizing their hearts’ young boy.

Everyone now went out to look for some kuisse and when they found some, they dug it up, took it hime, and baked it.

At just about this time, and old Bushman, who had gone out to get some wood for his wife so that she might make a fire with which to cook the kuisse, espied the lion as he came over the top of the hill at the exact place where the young boy had appeared. Immediately he told his house folk about it. Speaking, he said, “Do you see what it is that stands there yonder on the top of the hill, at the place where the young boy came over?”

Thereupon the young boy’s mother, looking, exclaimed, “Not on any account must you permit that lion to come into our huts! You must shoot it and kill is before it ever comes that far!”

So the people slung on their quivers and went to meet the lion. Again and again they shot at him, but he would not die.

Then another woman addressed the people, saying, “In what manner are you shooting at this lion that you cannot manage to kill him?”

Bout one of the older men replied, “Can you not see that this lion must be a sorcerer? It will not die despite our shooting at it, for it insists upon having the young boy that it carried off.”

The people now threw children for the lion to eat, but the lion merely looked at them and left them alone.

Again and again the people shot at the lion but all to no avail. The lion remained unharmed and kept looking for the young boy. After a while, some of the people said, “Bring is some assegais, so that we can spear it.” So they began spearing it while continued shooting. But, despite the shooting and the spearing, the lion remained unharmed and continued its search for the young boy, for the young boy whose tears it had licked. It wanted that boy, none other.

Coming upon the huts, it tore them asunder and broke them to pieces, seeking for the young boy. The people addressed one another in terror saying, “Do you not see that the lion will not eat the children we have thrown him? Can you not see that he must be a sorcerer?”

But some people answered, “Give the lion a girl. Perhaps it will eat her and then go away.”

The lion, however, did not touch the girl. It wanted the young boy it had carried off, none other.

Everyone was now completely bewildered, for no one knew in what manner to act toward the lion to persuade it to leave. It was late in the day and the people had been spearing and shooting at it since the morning; yet the lion remained unharmed and would not die. It kept walking about, searching for the young boy.

“We no longer know what to do to induce it to leave,” the people said.

‘We have offered children and a young girl but the lion has always refused them. It desires only the young boy it carried off.”

Finally, in desperation, some of the people said, “Tell the young boy’s mother what is happening. Tell her that, despite her great love for the young boy, she must take him and deliver him to the lion, even though he be the child of her heart. She herself must realize that the sun is about to set and the lion is still threatening us, that it will not depart. It insists upon having the young boy.”

The mother heard and answered, “Be it so. Give my child to the lion. In no wise, however, must you allow the lion to eat him, in no wise must you allow the lion to continue walking about here. You must kill him and lay him upon my child. Let the lion die upon my son.”

When the young boy’s mother had thus spoken, the people unwrapped the young boy from the harte-beest skins in which he had been rolled and gave him to the lion. The lion immediately seized him and bit him to death, but as he was thus biting him to death, the people shot and stabbed the lion.

Finally the lion spoke and said that he was ready to die, for now he had secured the boy he had all the time been seeking; he had got hold of him.

And so the lion died, and both the boy and the lion lay there dead, next to each other.

[ BUSHMEN ]