The cowhide whip commences to beat him. It beat, beat. Cowhide said, ‘‘Drop, drop.’’ So Terrapin drop and the cowhide stop beating. So he went home. He called his children in. He gives them the cowhide whip and tells them what to say, then he went out. The children say: Sheet n-oun n-jacko nou o quaako. The cowhide whip beat de children. It say, ‘‘Drop, drop.’’ Two children dead and de others sick. So Terrapin says, ‘‘I will go to the king.’’ He calls the king, he call all the people. All the people came. So before he has the cowhide whip beat, he has an armor made and gets in there and gets all covered up. Then the king say: Sheet n oun n-jacko nou o quaako. So the cowhide whip beat, beat. It beat everybody, beat the king too. That cowhide whip beat, beat, beat right through the armor that Terrapin was wearing and beat marks on his back, and that’s why you never find Terrapin in a clean place, only under leaves or a log. He’s always hiding from that cowhide whip. Source: Adapted from ‘‘Negro Folk Tales from the South (Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana),’’ Arthur Huff Fauset. Journal of American Folklore 40(1927): 213–303, pp. 215–217. Terrapin’s Magic Dipper and Whip 9
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