The Tale of the Greediest Man

In a city of the Hausa country, there lived a miser named Na-hana. He was so greedy that none of the townsfolk had ever seen Na-hana offer even a drop of water to a traveler. He would rather endure a couple of slaps than lose the tiniest bit of his wealth. And his wealth was considerable. Na-hana probably didn’t even know exactly how many goats and sheep he owned.

One day, upon returning from the pasture, Na-hana saw that one of his goats had stuck its head into a pot and couldn’t pull it out. Na-hana tried for a long time to remove the pot himself, but to no avail. Then he called the butchers and, after a long bargaining session, sold them the goat on the condition that they would cut off its head and return the pot to him. The butchers slaughtered the goat, but when they tried to pull out its head, they broke the pot. Na-hana was furious.

"I sold the goat at a loss, and now you’ve broken the pot too!" he shouted. He even began to cry.

From that day on, he never left pots on the ground but placed them somewhere higher, so that the goats or sheep couldn’t stick their heads into them and cause him a loss. And people began to call him the great miser and the greediest man alive.

More fairy tales

• Who is Stronger
• The Tale of Abdallah the Land-Dweller and Abdallah the Sea-Dweller
• 1. Sinbad the Sailor (First Voyage)
• The Cunning Seller
• 4. Sinbad the Sailor (The Fourth Voyage)