Friday night folktales: The Bakki-brothers and the Cow

One summer one of the brothers’ cows had no calf*. The brothers wanted to fix this and find a bull to mate with the cow. The next time the cow was in heat, they took it to a neighbour farmer who had a bull and asked him for permission to bring the cow and bull together for mating. The farmer gave his permission and told them where to find the bull.

The brothers brought the cow to the bull and were gone a long time. Finally they came back to the farmer, saying that the bull wasn’t interested in the cow. The farmer asked them what they had done, saying it wouldn’t surprise him if they had done something foolish, as was their wont. They explained that, “Oh, no, we laid the cow on her back and held her in place for the bull.”

“That’s what I thought,” said the farmer. “You three are no ordinary fools.”

* Explanation for city kids: This means that the cow wasn’t producing any milk, which could be disastrous for poor farmers.

Copyright notice: The wording used to tell this folk-tale is under copyright. The story itself is not copyrighted. If you want to re-tell it, for a collection of folk-tales, incorporate it into fiction, use it in a school essay or any kind of publication, please tell it in your own words or give the proper attribution if you choose to use the wording unchanged.

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