Un Conte Hunde Chanté et dialogué

1.9. Summary of the tale I A father who had become very old assigns a distinct role to each of his twelve sons, offspring of his twelve wives. The youngest son receives the mission of hunting game for his half‐brothers. At the very first hunting party, he finds the corpse of an elephant, the tusks of which he makes his first booty. II Thanks to this wealth, the older three half‐brothers manage to pay their bride‐price and get married. On another hunting trip, the youngest son kills an elephant. He has his father ask his half‐brothers to acknowledge his skill by offering him a present. III Before dying, the father draws up his will and confirms the youngest son, offspring of his despised wife, in his role as a hunter. The youngest one is still unmarried. After the father's death, all the older sons unite against the youngest one, who escapes with his mother into the forest. IV The refugees find shelter in a cave. During a hunting party, the son meets a horse‐like antelope. He hunts it with his dogs, until he finds out that it is a king in the form of an animal. V The king takes the hunter with him to his dwelling place. There, the hunter sees all kinds of marvellous things, like walking houses (automobiles), and is given a magic finger which can satisfy all of his desires. VI Thanks to this finger, the hunter becomes a rich man, erects a village and gets married to a princess. VII Soon afterwards, the woman asks permission to visit her parents. Her father becomes envious of her husband's famous magic finger. She returns to her husband, looking for the magic finger. At last, she discovers where it was hidden. Pretexting that she had to visit her father once more, she goes with the object and gives it to her father. VIII A few days later, the husband notices that his very precious object is missing. He refers to a diviner, and learns that the object is hidden at his father‐in‐law's. The diviner tells him to send a dog and a cat to fetch the magic finger. Mr Cat finds it and carries it back. IX Now Mr Dog offers to help Cat to carry the object. He drops it in the water, while crossing a lake. A fish catches it and disappears. Mr Dog is punished by having his mouth split into halves (that is why a dog's mouth is as it looks nowadays). X As a wage‐earning worker at his father's, the youngest son of the owner of the missing object asks for a leave. His request is made in the same terms as those used earlier by the treacherous woman in section VII: 350–355 above. Fishing along a river in the forest, he catches the fish which had swallowed the magic finger. He gets the object, becomes a rich man and builds a village. He experiences the same situation as his fatherin section VI:314–325 above, then tells the story of how he discovered the object. XI After the finger was found, the guilty woman is brought to trial. The husband is willing to forgive her, but the sons are implacable towards their father's wife. The woman is taken to die on the shore of a lake. XII Conclusion: Women are hard to deal with. It is better not to have confidence in them.They are malicious and exploit men

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