Outa Karel's Stories: South African Folk-Lore Tales
and the St
arroo like a canopy of softest velvet, making a deep, mysterious back
tions with which Cousin Minnie had made them familiar, and were deep in a discussion a
a billion stars up there in
, "is a thousand million, and it would
Stars
pag
l surely be a billion stars up there. Perhaps," he added, judicially considering the matter, "two billion, but no one knows, beca
stool, and his little au
herself by a wood fire, played with the ashes. She took the ashes in her hands and threw them up to see how pretty they were when they floated in the air. And as they floated away she put green bushes on the fire and stirred it with a stic
r hands and danced, shaking herself like Outa
stars! The
road for o
-fire! Dust
Dawn when Ni
rge stars. The old roots turned into stars that gave a red light, and the young roots turned into stars that gave a gold
hildren o
It's so
l when Nig
It's so
sail acr
s' Road, hi
inkling, s
l across
It's so!
dren nodding their heads and saying, 'It's so! It's so! It's so!'" At each repetiti
en a star fall?" Three lit
ed. For the star knows when a person's heart fails and the person dies, and it
tars. He called each one by name, till they all had their names, and in this way they knew that he was the Great Star. No
the way is a big bright star. He is called the Dawn's-Heart Star, and in the dark, dark hour, before the Stars have called the Dawn, he shines-ach! baasjes, he is beautiful to behold! The wife and the child of the Dawn's-Heart Star are pretty, too, b
sing, twinkling
across
Come
like a young m
sleep from
tretching bright
the way f
le the Stars fai
ars' Road
Come
across
's-Heart Sta
It's so!
, because they know th
grow faint and the Stars' Road fades, while the Dawn makes a bright pathway for the Sun. At last he comes with both arms l
singing. Summer is the time when they sing best, but even now, if baasje
ss the Baas was just in time to hand him, was of three little heads bobbing up and down in time to the immemorial music of t
ferent as the Scandinavians of Northern Europe and the Bushmen of South Africa.-See Hans Andersen's L
ether, and all the sons of God s