updated March 25 2017
How wisdom got out - Sleeping Beauty - The Horned Woman
Anansi, our hero from Ghana in West Africa, keeps all the world's wisdom in a pot and he decides to hide it up a tree.
Long ago, one old man had all the wisdom in world. His name was Father Anansi, and in some mysterious way he was related to the trickster spider of the same name. People always came to him with questions like:
“Father Anansi, what should I do to make my son behave better?” and:
“Father Anansi, what should I do to make my aunty well again?”and:
“Father Anansi, what should I do to make my yams grow?”
And he answered a 100 other such questions every day.
(wisdom = sagesse, trickster = farceur, arnaqueur, spider = araignée, behave better = se comporter mieux, yam = igname)
People paid him well for his wisdom, and he grew rich and his family was never hungry. But Anansi feared that one day somebody would try to steal all his wisdom, and he would no longer possess the thing that brought him respect and wealth. And so one day, he decided to collect together all his wisdom in one big pot and hide it in the forest.
(steal = voler, wealth = richesse, brought him = lui apportaient, hide = cacher)
Now his son was called Kweku Tsin, and he was as smart and as tricky as his father. He suspected that Anansi had some secret plot, and he decided to follow him. He walked behind his father and his big pot, until he came to the tallest tree in the forest. Anansi meant to climb to the top of the tree, and hang his pot of wisdom on the highest branch where nobody would see it. (follow = suivre)
Anansi strapped the pot in front of his body, and then he tried to climb the tree. But try as he might, he could not get beyond the first branch because he fell down to the ground.
“Ouch!” (he fell = il tomba)
He stood up and rubbed a bruise on his back. Not one to give up easily, he started to climb again. This time he reached the second branch before falling back to the ground. (bruise = un bleu, again = de nouveau)
“Ooooh Ouch!”
A third time, Anansi tried to climb the tree, and on this occasion he just managed to grab the third branch before he tumbled back onto the ground.
“Oooh, Oooh, Ouch!”
His son stepped out from behind the bush where he had been hiding and said:
“Father, I have seen you try three times to climb the tree with the pot dangling in front of you. Thank you for this amusing comedy. My sides hurt because I have been laughing so much. But let me tell you how to do this. Put the pot on your back, and then you will find it so much easier to climb the tree.” (laugh = rire)
And Anansi immediately grew angry and threw the pot down onto the ground (angry = en colère):
“What is the point of all this wisdom,” he demanded to know, “if my son knows how to do this simple thing better than I do?”
And as he spoke, all the wisdom flew out of the pot and scattered around the four corners of the world. And that is why there is, despite all appearances to the contrary, so much wisdom in the world. People know how to take care of things, how to make things work, and how to get things done. And all that wisdom is due to the bad temper of Father Anansi who threw down the pot of wisdom in a tantrum. (flew out = s'envola, tantrum = accès de colère)
Once upon a time, there lived a King and a Queen, who said every day: “If only we had a child!” After many years, their wish came true, and a baby girl was born. Oh, how happy they were! (wish = voeu)
They shared their joy by inviting seven wise fairies to the palace. When the fairies sat down to eat, they each found a gift made of gold by the side of their plate. (share = partager, wise = sage, gift = cadeau, gold = or, plate = assiette)
Now there was one other fairy whose magic was more powerful than all the wise ones put together. Unfortunately, this fairy had an evil heart. When she heard of the celebrations for the baby princess, and found out that she had not been invited, she took great offence. (evil = bad)
Towards the end of the evening, each of the wise fairies gave a magical gift to the baby princess.
The first wished her the gift of reason.
The second wished her the gift of beauty.
The third wished her the gift of grace.
The fourth wished her the gift of music.
The fifth wished her the gift of dance.
The sixth wished her the gift of …
Well, we do not know what gift she would have wished for, because at that moment the Evil Fairy appeared in the centre of the great hall, her mouth fixed in a false smile, and her eyes delighting in spite. (spite =malice)
“Do forgive me for dropping by uninvited,” she said, “I will not keep you for long. I have come to wish my own gift upon the baby princess.”
While the Evil Fairy held everyone’s attention, the seventh good fairy hid behind the curtains. (hide, hid, hidden = se cacher)
The wicked one continued: “I do so wish that the dear little princess shall grow up to be a radiant, accomplished and beautiful girl of sixteen years, the delight of her parents’ eyes, and then, on her seventeenth birthday, she shall prick her finger on the needle of a spinning wheel and DIE! How do you like that? Ha ha ha!” (wicked= evil, grow up = grandir, needle = aiguille)
Still laughing dreadfully, she strode from the hall. Amid the uproar, the seventh wise fairy stepped out of hiding and waved her wand to cast the spell of silence. (dreadfully = horribly, wand = baguette magique, cast a spell = jeter un sort)
“There remains a seventh and final wish that is mine to make,” she said. “It is not in my power to entirely overcome the evil wish, but I can at least do this -when the princess pricks her finger, let her not die, but fall asleep for 100 years until she is awoken by true love’s kiss.” (prick = se piquer)
The very next day the King passed a law forbidding anyone in the land from owning a spinning wheel. After that, no one ever spoke of the ill fated banquet. The child, whose name was Talia, grew up to be as talented as she was beautiful. But she was also strong headed, and when, on her seventeenth birthday, the King and Queen forbade her to leave her room, she disobeyed them. She climbed out of her window to avoid the guard on the door, and walked around the grounds of the palace. (spinning wheel = rouet, forbid, forbade, forbidden = interdire)
She thought that she discovered every nook and cranny while playing hide and seek as a child, but, oddly enough, she now found an entrance that she had not seen before. She went through it and climbed the winding steps of a tower. Up, up she stepped, until right at the top she came to a room. The door was ajar. Inside she found an old woman, working intently at a strange wheel. (nook = recoin, hide and seek = cache cache, oddly = strangely, step = marche, ajar = entrouvert, wheel = roue)
“Pray tell me, good woman, what is that?” asked Talia.
“Don’t you know? It is your destiny my dear,” replied the woman.
“If it is my destiny, may I try it?” (try = essayer)
The old woman let the princess sit and play with the fascinating toy. The wheel spun and the needle bobbed up and down.
“What fun!” exclaimed Talia, but oh! The princess was not used to spinning thread, and she pricked her finger on the needle.
“Look! I am bleeding!” she exclaimed. (bleed = saigner)
The princess returned down the steps of the tower. Her legs felt weaker and weaker, and when she reached the rose garden she lay down on the grass and fell into a deep sleep.
(weaker and weaker = de plus en plus faible)
The courtiers carried her to her room. On and on she slept, and gradually everyone else who lived in the palace was also overcome with sleep. In less than a week, a great forest had grown around the walls enclosing the palace entirely.
One hundred years later, a prince was out hunting. He asked his companions, “What are those towers above the treetops?” (hunt = chasser, tower = tour)
Some said that an ogre lived there, others said that witches danced there at full moon, and a third theory went that it was home to a sleeping princess. (moon = lune)
The curious prince pointed his horse towards the tower and rode through the trees. He soon came to a dark place where the thorn bushes were so thick and sharp that no one could pass through them. But for him alone, the brambles parted and made way. On he rode, through the gates of the palace itself, where he found that every lord and master, every horse and hound, lay fast asleep. He saw food on plates, glasses half full, fire’s still burning, everything exactly as it had been. He passed down a marble hall, knocked on doors and peeped into rooms, until eventually he found a gilded chamber, inside of which, among embroidered covers and silken cushions, lay a princess. She slept serenely. The prince knelt down beside her, picked up her hand, and kissed it. Her eyes opened. They were blue and full of curiosity. (thorn bushes = buissons épineux, thick = épais, sharp = pointu, aiguisé, brambles = ronces, part = s'écarter, gate = portail, hound = dog, glass = verre, peep = jeter un coup d'oeil, gilded = doré, embroidered = brodé, silk = soie, cushion = coussin, kneel down = s'agenouiller)
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Your husband to be, or so I dare to hope,” he replied.
And the very next week they were wed.
(husband to be = future husband, dare = oser, hope = espérer)
A spooky story from Ireland about some witches with horns growing from their heads.
A rich woman sat up late carding wool while her children and servants slept. A knock came at the door and a voice said: “Open! Open!” (card wool = carder la laine)
“Who’s there?” said the woman of the house.
“I am the witch of the one horn,” came the answer. (horn = corne)
Against her better judgement, the mistress felt compelled to get up and open the door. A woman entered – but Mary! (compelled = obliged)
What a strange woman she was, for a horn grew out of her forehead! (foreheard = front)
She sat down in silence by the fire and began to card thread with violent haste. Eventually she said:
“Where are the others? They are taking too long.”
Then there came a second knock on the door. “Open,Open!” said a voice.
A second woman entered, this time with two horns growing from her head. In her hand she carried a spinning wheel, and she sat down by the fire and began to spin wool. (spinning wheel = rouet)
At length there was a third knock on the door, and the third woman entered, this one with three horns on her head, and so it continued, until there were twelve women in all sitting around the fire, the first with one horn, the last with twelve. Together they sang an ancient rhyme. Strange to look upon, and frightening to hear, were these twelve women with their horns and their wheels, carding, and spinning, and singing quite uninvited in the front room of the house. The mistress felt weak, and though she tried to rise and call for help, she was quite unable to do so for the witches of the horns had cast a spell upon her. (frightening = effrayant, weak = faible, though = bien que, cast a spell = jeter un sort)
She sat beside the haunted stream
While ’t was crimsoned yet with the sunset beam,
And her long black hair with the wild winds flew,
And her robe was a robe of snowy hue,
And she gazed with sad, dark-glancing eye
Where Mac Caura’s towers rose proud and high.
Then one of them called out to her in Irish:
“Éirigh I do sheasamh, a bhean, agus beirigh císte!”
“Rise woman and make a cake!”
And the lady looked around for a pot to bring water from the well so that she could mix it with flour, but in her stupor she could not find one. (the well = le puits, flour = farine)
“Take the sieve!” commanded one of the women, and seeing one hanging from the cupboard she did so. She went out to the well where she tried to fill it but of course she was unable to, because the water ran through the holes. At last she sat down by the well, exhausted by her efforts, and she wept. (sieve = passoire, hole = trou, exhausted = tired, weep, wept, wept = cry)
It was at this moment, close to despair, that she heard a gentle voice say: “Listen to me, for I am the spirit of the well, and I shall keep you safe. Take some clay and moss from the ground, use it to patch up the sieve. Then you may fill it up with water.” (despair = désespoir, clay = glaise, ground = sol, fill up = remplir)
Return to the house with the water and as you pass through the door, call out:
“The mountain of Fenian women and the sky over it are all on fire!”
And she did so.
Upon hearing these words the twelve horned women rushed around the room wailing and shrieking most accursedly, before finally departing via the windows and up the chimney.
(wail = gémir, shriek = crier)
The woman went out to the well to thank the spirit for his kind advice that had surely saved both her and her family from a terrible fate. (fate = sort)
“It is too soon to rejoice for the women will surely return unless you follow my instructions exactly.” And then he told her what she should do. She listened carefully and followed the instructions to the letter. (unless = à moins)
Firstly she sprinkled water with which she had washed her child’s feet outside the door and all along the path. (sprinkle = asperger)
Secondly she took the cake which the witches had made while she was outside and placed a few crumbs of it in each of the mouths of her sleeping children. (crumbs = miettes)
Thirdly, she took the cloth which they had woven and placed it half in and half out of the chest. (cloth = tissu)
Finally she barred the door with a great wooden cross beam, lodging it in the jams.(cross= croix)
When she had done these things, she sat down and waited. But not for long. Soon the witches were back, whirling around the house and screaming most fearfully. (whirl = tournoyer, scream = shout, fearfully = de manière effrayante)
“Open, open footwater!” they cried.
“I can’t,” replied the footwater, “because I am scattered all along the path.” (scattered = éparpillé, path = allée)
“Open cake that we have baked,” called the witches.
“I can’t, for my crumbs are on the lips of the sleeping children,” replied the cake.
“Open cloth that we have woven,” screeched the witches. (weave = tisser, screech = hurler)
“I can’t,” replied the cloth. “For I am trapped half in and half out of the chest.” (chest = coffre)
“Wooden beam, open the door!” called the witches. (beam = poutre)
“I can’t because I am lodged in the jams across the door,” replied the wooden beam.
Then the witches rushed through the air with cries, uttering curses on the spirit of the well who had wished their ruin, before they fled back to Slievenaman (which means ‘The mountain of the women’) which was their dwelling. (curse = sort, malédiction – dwelling = demeure)
In the morning the lady of the house found a cape dropped by one of the witches. Some five hundred years later the very same witch’s cape was still kept by her family as a memento of the awful struggle with the twelve horned women that evening, long ago. (awful = horrible – struggle = lutte)