Toothache Entailed

This tale has been adapted from the original for readability:

One day a boy went into the bush to cut sticks. Out there he came across a woman with an astonishing set of teeth, so long that people said they stretched all the way to Freetown, and some swore they reached to the very end of Africa.

The boy stared at them and said, “This is a fine long stick,” and he began to chop. At once the woman cried out. The boy lifted his cutlass and struck again, and the woman wailed, “My teeth, those are my teeth.” But the boy did not listen. He kept cutting, and she kept shouting, “My teeth, my teeth.”

He chopped on until he was close enough to hear her clearly. Then he called out, “Mammy, let me finish it. It’s far too long.” The woman begged him to stop, saying it would hurt her too much. But the boy said he would not stop, and went right on cutting.

By the time he reached her, she could almost catch him, her hand close enough to grab. The boy stepped back and waited a little while, until she had forgotten the worst of her pain. Then he went in again and cut until the teeth were short inside her mouth.

And that is why there were no teeth in the world before. It was that woman who brought teeth into the world, and it was that boy who cut them up and scattered them, giving teeth to everyone.