A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

Overview

The large snake lives among the animal helpers in Auta's forest household. Seeing the king's attempts to seize his wealth, it proposes entering the king's beloved daughter and making her condition impossible for the assembled specialists to relieve. The intrusion is followed by an abdomen swelling to the size of a storehouse. The snake has already told Auta how to use the situation against the king's hostile adviser. Auta appears dressed in rags, overcomes the adviser's dismissal and names a demand whose fulfillment costs that adviser his life. The girl later recovers as the snake leaves, but the collector stars the words describing the exit, so its precise original mechanism is not asserted.

On the homeward road the snake asks to live in an ant-hill and receive meat each Sunday. Auta keeps the arrangement until a frog takes the available portion before he can deliver it. The snake arrives to ask why it has not been fed; after discussion it receives permission to seize the thief and pretends to return home. Instead it hides behind Auta's door and bites him when he comes out to reason with it. The frog investigates and is bitten as well. Both die. The ending turns a useful supernatural ally into a fatal creditor, while the named weekly offering remains a condition in this individual narrative rather than advice for handling real snakes.

Speaking animal adviserExtraordinary bodily intrusionStorehouse-sized swellingAnt-hill residenceWeekly meat conditionFatal concealed retaliation
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Origins & earliest records

Tremearne's 1913 second edition prints this tale with B.G., Ba Gu(d)du, credited in its contents. Auta is a youngest-son designation used in other stories too; the selected household and snake sequence belongs to tale 80, not an assumption that every Auta is one continuous character. The larger collection dates do not fix an exact session for this telling.

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Records & interpretation

Complete tale 80 read from its inheritance opening through the deaths and separately labeled comparisons, pp. 380-392. Snake scheme pp. 387-390; exact withdrawal wording held because starred; ant-hill agreement, stolen meat and full fatal ending pp. 390-392.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    Hausa Superstitions and Customs - The Lucky Youngest Son

    Ba Gu(d)du, narrator; A. J. N. Tremearne, collector and translator · 1913

    Tale 80, pp. 380-392. Snake scheme pp. 387-390; exact withdrawal wording held because starred; ant-hill agreement, stolen meat and full fatal ending pp. 390-392.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Collected primary narrative in translationTremearne 1913 - tale 80Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

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