Once on a time, a
certain Namaqua was travelling in company with a Bosch woman
carrying a child on her back. They had proceeded some distance on
the journey, when a troop of wild horses appeared; and the man said
to the woman, 'I am hungry, and I know you can turn yourself into a
lion: do so now, and catch us a wild horse, that we may eat.'
"The woman answered, 'You'll be afraid.'
"'No, no,' said the man; 'I am afraid of dying of hunger, but I am
not afraid of you.'
"Whilst he was yet speaking, hair began to appear at the back of the
woman's neck, her nails began to assume the appearance of claws, and
her features altered. She set down the child.
"The man, alarmed at the change, climbed a tree close by. The woman
glared at him fearfully, and, going to one side, she threw off her
skin petticoat, when a perfect lion rushed out into the plain. It
bounded and crept among the bushes, towards the wild horses; and
springing on one of them, it fell, and the lion lapped its blood.
The lion then came back to where the child was crying, and the man
called from the tree, 'Enough, enough! do not hurt me! Put off your
lion's shape. I will never ask to see you thus again.'
"The lion looked at him and growled. 'I will remain here till I
die,' said the man, 'if you do not become a woman again.'
"The mane and tail then began to disappear; the lion went towards
the bush where the skin petticoat lay; it was slipped on, and the
woman, again in her proper shape, took up the child.
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