Wise Ewe of Auta

Overview

A dying father advises each of his three sons to choose an old ewe instead of his riches. Only the youngest, Auta, agrees, promising to feed her before himself. They travel together and lodge with an impoverished weaver. Of the host's two wives, the less favored shares her scarce grain and makes gruel for the guests. After receiving her food first, the ewe leads Auta to the forest edge. By repeatedly moving through the grass and asking him to inspect her tracks, she reveals about two hundred richly equipped horses and then their grooms. A further visit produces a great company of attendants carrying corn. She directs these gifts to the hospitable woman and chooses her daughter as Auta's bride.

The rewards follow a repeated pattern of shared scarcity rather than an unexplained discovery by the boy alone. The favored wife refuses the visitor water and reserves her remaining grain for her daughter; the other wife uses her handful to feed him despite her own need. Auta keeps the promise to give the ewe the first drink each time. After the horses and grooms, about three hundred attendants arrive carrying sheaves. The ewe directs these too to the generous household. The weaver and the previously unfavored wife share the prosperity, while the animal herself is given a separate house.

The ewe lives in a house built for her while the young man prospers. She warns him about taking another wife, but he marries a woman whose beauty overrides that advice. During his absence the newcomer threatens a servant into slaughtering the ewe for meat. Returning to the skinned body, Auta collects the flesh, wraps it in the fleece and carries it into the forest. His threatened self-destruction is interrupted first by the flesh speaking and then by the ewe rising alive. She recalls her warning, accompanies him home and sees the second wife expelled. Restoration is the tale's supernatural ending, distinct from the collector's following comparison with an old mare in another narrative.

Origins & earliest records

A. J. N. Tremearne prints this tale in the 1913 second edition of Hausa Superstitions and Customs. Its contents credit B.G., identified in the narrator key as Ba Gu(d)du. The introduction places much collection work in 1908-1909, without dating this particular session. Bracketed explanatory additions and collector comparisons remain distinct from the attributed tale.

Records & interpretation

Complete primary episode read through its conclusion. Tale 79, The Youngest Son and the Wise Ewe, printed pp. 374-380; main narrative before the separately labeled variants.

Selected bibliography

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

1. 01

   Hausa Superstitions and Customs

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

   Tale 79, The Youngest Son and the Wise Ewe, printed pp. 374-380; main narrative before the separately labeled variants.

Family & connections

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References

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1. Digitized collected primary narrative in translationTremearne 1913 second edition - selected complete taleResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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