Once upon a time, there was an old woman who lived in a simple village in a small kingdom made up of farmers and shepherds.

Her wealth was only a bull. She wouldn’t sell it even if someone gave her a high price. After a while, the kingdom suffered a bad harvest and led to a famine. The residents of the kingdom asked her to slaughter the animal, but she refused. The sheikh of the village blamed her in front of the king and the king ordered the old woman to slaughter her bull to feed the inhabitants. In the end, they slaughtered the bull and everyone ate, and they collected its fat in a jar that they gave to the old woman. When the sun set, the jar fell and the liquid turned into a very beautiful fairy girl. This girl was helping the old woman and she became very important to her. When the sun was rising, the fairy was returning to its liquid form and the fat was entering the jar.

The old woman decided that she would keep the curtain of the window closed as she did not want the sun’s rays to enter the house, so that the beautiful girl would stay by her side.

The news of the mysterious presence of the girl in the old woman’s house spread, until one day an arrogant prince knocked on the door of her house and wanted to ask for the hand of the beautiful girl, but the landlady refused and expelled him from her house.

The prince quickly returned to the kingdom’s palace and cried in front of his father, the king. It was the king’s turn to go to the old woman’s house, to ask for her hand in his son, and he actually went, but when the king saw her he was impressed by her beauty. He decided to marry her and asked for her hand in marriage.

After difficult negotiations, the king married her, they arranged the wedding, and from this time she remained away from the light. But the king’s first and second wives were jealous of her. They waited for the right time to come until they made her pay the price. They entered her room, opened the curtain, and the rays of the sun entered the room of the beautiful girl. The sun killed her, and from the melted fat, a large river full of water was born. The river helped the whole kingdom and the famine ended. The king went mad and turned into a hippopotamus, and the two wives into a fish and a crocodile. From that time until today, the river has helped millions of people and the world knows it as Niger.