Marry The Devil, There's The Devil To Pay

This tale has been adapted from the original for readability:

One day there was a mother with a daughter, and the girl was so admired that rich men and ordinary folk alike came asking to marry her. But she turned them all away. Her mother said, “If you ever see someone you truly like, tell me. Whatever you want, I’ll give it, whatever you ask for, I’ll provide.”

Not long after, the Devil heard about this girl who refused every suitor, and he decided he would marry her himself. He dressed up to look handsome and respectable, better turned out than any man in the world, and set off for her town. The girl happened to be standing at the window, watching the road, and when she saw him coming she called to her mother, “I’ve seen the one I like. That’s the man I’ll marry.”

When the stranger arrived, she went out to meet him and brought him inside. He said he had come to marry her, and she agreed. At once she began asking her mother for animals to cook as a welcome feast. “Mum, the cow’s about to die.” Her mother told her to kill it for the new husband. “Mum, the fowls are sick.” Her mother told her to kill them too. So the girl prepared beef and fowl with rice and other food and carried it to him.

But the Devil did not eat rice or ordinary food. When she left, he scraped a hole by the fireside and buried the rice, covering it up so it looked as though he’d eaten. When she came back and saw the plates, she thought he must be full, and asked why he hadn’t eaten more. He told her he’d eaten plenty, and she believed him.

Now the girl had a little brother who was ill and covered in a terrible itchy rash. He went to greet the stranger, but the man shouted at him, and the boy sat down, frightened and quiet.

Soon the Devil said it was time to go home, and he insisted the girl must come with him as his wife. Her family did not like it, but he pressed them until they agreed. They packed her up with gifts, and the two of them set off. The sick little brother tried to follow, saying he had to stay close to his sister, but the Devil refused. He said the boy was too ugly and should not come.

The boy followed anyway, at a distance. They walked all day. When the Devil turned and saw the boy behind them, he caught him, beat him, and warned him not to follow. The boy fell back and hid, then began trailing them again.

Later the Devil pulled out a white kola nut, split it, and gave half to the girl, taking half himself. Before long the boy caught up once more. The Devil raised his hand to beat him again, but the girl said, “Please, don’t hurt him. Let him come along behind us.” So the boy followed, step by step, still keeping a little way back.

As they walked, the Devil’s disguise began to fail. First one side of his head slipped and sagged. The girl pointed and said, “Look, your head is falling.” The Devil answered with a strange little chant, telling her to leave it be. They went on until one of his feet began to come loose, and again the girl cried out, and again he sang the same chant, as though words could fasten him together.

By evening they reached the Devil’s home, and the girl saw that she had come to a place that felt wrong. They cooked, they ate, and then they went to sleep.

In the middle of the night the Devil woke and took out a huge knife. He sharpened it, meaning to kill the girl and eat her. But the little brother was not asleep. He made a soft snoring sound, pretending, so the Devil would think he’d gone off.

When the Devil finished sharpening the knife, the boy suddenly cried out as if in pain, “Oh, my rash is itching me to death.”

The Devil came over and said, “Boy, are you still awake?”

The boy said, “Yes, sir. My skin hurts, and I can’t sleep on a bed. I need a pile of cloth to lie on.”

Grumbling, the Devil fetched a heap of cloth and made the boy a bed on the floor, hoping that would finally put him to sleep so he could turn back to the girl. The girl slept on, unaware.

After a while the Devil picked up his knife again and began to sharpen it, thinking about how sweet it would be to eat the girl. The boy coughed.

“Boy, are you still awake?” the Devil snapped.

The boy said, “Yes, sir. Hunger’s got hold of me.”

So the Devil gave him something to eat, put him back down, and waited. It was deep into the night now. At last the Devil thought the boy must have fallen asleep. He lifted the knife again.

The boy scratched at his skin, making noise.

The Devil slammed the knife down and said, “Why can’t you sleep? What did your mother do for that rash when you were at home?”

The boy said, “They washed me with the first water that comes through a fishing net. Not water from a bowl, only the first water that drips through the net before it’s poured anywhere.”

The Devil, eager to get back to the girl, grabbed a fishing net and a bowl and hurried down to the waterside. He dipped the net into the water and tried to carry the water back in it, not stopping to think that a net cannot hold water. He tried again and again, rushing and fumbling, growing more and more furious.

While he was gone, the boy shook his sister awake. “Get up,” he whispered. “That man is the Devil. He means to kill you tonight. I sent him out to fetch water with a fishing net, and he’ll be busy for a while. We have to run, now, before he comes back.”

The girl sprang up, and the two of them fled into the dark, walking as fast as they could. When the Devil finally realised he could not carry water in a net, he stormed back to the house and found it empty. He ran after them at once.

The boy heard him coming and pulled his sister into hiding. The Devil rushed past, thinking they were further ahead, and when he did not find them he turned back, searching again. The girl and the boy slipped out and kept going, and by morning they were home.

Then the girl told her people everything she had seen and suffered, and she said, “I wouldn’t have gone through all this if I’d listened when you warned me. I was stubborn.”

And from that day she kept one lesson close: if you’re going somewhere and a child insists on following, don’t drive them away. You never know. That child might be the one who saves you from terrible trouble.