Two men decided to have a sleeping contest.
The first man fell asleep by a fire. His foot caught on fire while he slept, but he did not move. Other people saw and woke him. "Why did you wake me?" he said. "I was asleep!"
The other man slept during a rainstorm. The floodwaters carried him into the river where a fish swallowed him. A fisherman caught the fish, and when he sliced the fish open, he found the man, still alive... and still sleeping. When the fisherman woke him, he said, "Why did you wake me? I was asleep!"
Inspired by: "The Rival Sleepers" in Negro Culture In West Africa by George W. Ellis, 1914.
Notes: You can read the original story online. These are Vai stories from Liberia. Compare this story from Sierra Leone: The Sleepy Man.
No comments:
Post a Comment