Week 30: Miski Ali - Dhegdheer Can Hear You

Full prompt: “Dhegdheer is a cannibal woman in Somali folklore. She is a character told to children for several generations. It is similar to Hansel and Gretel in that she kills children and parents would tell the tale of Dhegdheer to prevent their kids from wandering off.  ‘Dhegdheer’ means ‘the one with the long ear’, and this abnormality allows her to have sharp auditory senses. Parents would scare their children with ‘Dhegdheer can hear you and she's looking for the kids that misbehave"

Story:

It is said a person’s ears keep growing throughout the course of their entire life, but in one little girl’s case they grew to their full size, and then some, almost immediately. Dhelia was born to a loving mother and father who built their cabin home in the woods many miles from the nearest town. The couple loved the natural world and taught their precious daughter all they knew about it. As her ears grew and grew and grew, Dhelia couldn’t help but listen to all of their teachings. Her father lovingly joked that she could hear trouble coming down the lane. Unfortunately he was right. One day, hiking through the wilderness, Dhelia heard her father’s heart start to beat in a different way than usual. It was faster, sometimes slower, nevertheless he continued with the hike that day and the work necessary to provide for his family. Dhelia had no way of knowing it meant something was wrong.

After her father passed away Dhelia heard her mother’s heart start to beat differently as well. It slowed; neither rising or falling in pace for years. Though she loved her daughter very much, her mother could do nothing to lift the melancholy that had taken root in her heart. Dhelia did all she could to help her mother with the chores. She consistently kept a smile on her own face, using all of her young heart and mind in efforts to heal her mother.

Eventually it came time for Dhelia to begin attending school in the nearby town. Not for one second of her short life did Dhelia think anything negative about the size of her ears until her first day of school. The kids whispered in quiet and hushed voices about the big-eared girl, but it didn’t matter. Dhelia could hear them. With time they began to openly mock her for being different from them. In an attempt to hide her ears Dhelia grew her hair out extremely long, but it was no use. No matter how long or how she wore it, her hair had no hope of covering her large ears. Yet, every afternoon on her walk home, she pushed the melancholy away and put a smile on her face for her mother.

Sadly, in her seventh year of school the heart of Dhelia’s mother couldn’t fight it's ache any longer and she joined her husband. It was at this point Dhelia took to wearing large hats in an attempt to hide her ears. It was at this point Dhelia stopped smiling. Her somber attitude and large hat eventually led to the students, and some of the town’s people, referring to her as a witch. She attended school with less frequency. She withdrew. She came to town for supplies less and less, learning to live off of what she could grow at her family home miles away from mockery. She decided if she was going to be alone, then she would truly be alone. 

Dhelia learned to enjoy small things- the sound of the birds’ song, the falling of the autumn leaves, the rustling of the sly fox romping around the thicket. She could hear the moment new animals were born into the world and learned when to approach them and when to stay clear of their over-protective mommas. She learned to depend on nature and herself. 

Meanwhile, her withdrawal from society only led to a rise in the legend of Dhelia, the witch of the woods. It became a daring game among the children of the town to get as near her house as possible. They goaded one another into a seemingly dangerous situation, which could not be more to the contrary. Dhelia could always hear them coming and for the most part used this ability to evade contact with them, choosing to instead go on long slow walks, listening to the creatures and rhythms of mother nature. 

Dhelia aged. The children in the village grew to adults and had their own children. They used the legend of the witch to keep their children from misbehaving. They became too preoccupied with legend to learn anything of true value about the surrounding wilderness. For Dhelia, the witch of the woods, was not what they should fear. 

Ripped from a deep slumber Dhelia could sense something was off. Through her keen hearing she heard giggles and dares from children more than a mile away and immediately rolled over to continue her morning’s rest, until she remembered something. The bear living closest to her cabin had just come out of hibernation with four new cubs. Surely, she thought, the children were smart enough to stay away from the brand new baby bears. Then her intuition got the better of her as she reminded herself they were all just curious little cubs, the humans included. She bolted upright in her bed. She tilted her head toward the direction of the children listening for sounds of the bear cubs and sure enough, she heard them. 

Dhelia hastily grabbed several things from around her cabin as she threw on a robe and her hat and ran out the door. Every step of the fastest pace she could achieve was grading on her sensitive ears, breaking twigs and crunching dry leaves, but she could also hear what was unfolding ahead. Dhelia slowed her pace as she arrived on the scene already knowing the human children had foolishly positioned themselves directly between the momma bear and her four cubs. She waited to hear how the momma would react and if intervention was necessary. When all of the sudden one little girl screamed- causing Dhelia to double over. The little girl, seeing Dhelia in her hat and cloak, cried: “It’s the witch, it's the witch!” She as another child, scared breathless, tried to direct their attention toward the approaching bear. Dhelia shoved two, handmade, waxen orbs into her ears and pulled from her cloak a ram’s horn. She blew on it as loud as she could simultaneously startling the charging mother bear, scaring the children, and causing herself extreme pain. Everyone stunned, she pulled the other things she had grabbed at her cabin from her cloak- three freshly caught fish, meant to be her own dinner. She held them high in the air to catch all five of the bears’ scent. Once she had their attention she motioned to the children to make their way toward her before tossing the fish the other direction. The bears took the bait as the children all ran toward the witch of the woods.

Stay behind me, she sternly directed them. In shock and confusion all three children complied. The four of them backed away as slowly and respectfully as possible before witnessing the five bears retreat with the fish offerings. 

“Are you all okay?” She crouched down and asked the children. 

All children in shock, only the girl who had screamed took action. She raised her hand up toward Dhelia’s face and removed her hat. Dhelia’s world-weary, but kind eyes stared at her, ready for her ears to be made fun of. 

“You’re not a witch at all are you?” The little girl stated.

“You saved us…” a boy echoed in dismay. 

From that day on Dhelia was no longer referred to as a witch, but a grandmother. The entire village came to know her as a kind figure full of wisdom and knowledge about the wilderness. The kids no longer dared each other in fear to get close to her house, but rather full of love and laughter, raced each other to Grandma Dhelia’s- a sound which was music to her ears.