This week, on the Myths and Legends podcast, it's the story of the cane, a dragon hunter from

the folklore of South Africa. You'll learn that if you're trying to find something,

it's helpful to scream insults out of frog family, just trying to enjoy a quiet dinner.

Then, on the creature of the week, it's the leprechaun. And if a guy shows up at your house riding

a sheep's side saddle and dressed like he's going to the Renaissance festival, do not let him hold your baby.

This is the Myths and Legends podcast, Episode 53, Crocodile Tears.

This is a podcast where I tell stories from folklore. Some are incredibly popular stories you

think you know, but with surprising origins. Others are stories you might not have heard, but

really should. Today's story comes to us from the best so-toe people in southern Africa.

They are a people group that lives mostly in modern day South Africa. They speak syshopto,

a Bantu language. Today's story takes place probably sometime in the late Middle Ages,

but the society was probably just a loose band of clans, each ruled by a chief, and we'll start

with the late chief's daughter, the cane.

The cane's brothers were the worst. Their father had died last year. It happens to literally everyone,

and life in the village moved on, a new chief was chosen, and the old revered, and then mostly

forgotten, except by the three children he left behind, who are now forced to fend for themselves.

Luckily, the cane was there. She was the older sister to her two brothers, and she became their

father, their sister, and their mother, on the day that he died. She cleaned, collected and ground

corn, left early in the morning to get water, made sure her family had food, a home, and a future.

Her brothers hunted sometimes, and she was the one who had to clean, dress, and cook the kill

after they threw the dead animal down in the house, later in the day. It would have been annoying,

but the time was finally here for them to become men. They had been at warrior school for five months,

...