Many years ago, a man lived all alone in a green forest.
His wife and children were all dead.
He started eating people because he was very hungry.
People living in the villages around the forest were afraid of him. They made sure to never walk anywhere near the forest.
One day, the man saw a woman passing by. He walked out of the forest to greet her.
She had been banished from one of the villages by the local king because she was a witch. But of course the man did not know that.
The man fell in love with the woman. He asked her to move into the forest with him.
He was happy to have a companion again, but his hunger for human flesh did not go away.
One morning, the woman made some tea for the man.
There was something different about the tea. It was blood red. "Why is this tea so red?" asked the man.
"It will make you strong and invisible. You will be able to go anywhere and no one will be able to see you," said the woman.
The man was very excited.
He knew he would be able to eat as many people as he wanted to, and no one would ever see him. He drank the tea and asked for more. The woman was happy to give him as much tea as he wanted.
After drinking the tea, the man fell off his chair and died. The witch pointed her magic wand at the man's body and it disappeared.
The witch turned herself into a beautiful woman. She returned to her village.
She married the king who had banished her from the village.
She became a beloved queen of the village.
Illustration - Lerato Khuzwayo
Language - English
Level - Longer paragraphs
Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0
Source www.africanstorybook.org
Original source This story is one of the 7 winning stories from the Writing in Your Mother Tongue writing competition, an initiative of Saulsville Library and the African Storybook.
