A long-forgotten tale of sorcery and a severed head
Laikipia Plateau, Kenya Our local chief Panta wore a government-issue khaki uniform with epaulettes, beret and swagger stick. On a pleasant stroll to our farm springs, he observed how plenty of blood had been spilled over this water. We sat on the glassy-smooth black rocks around the water pools and the chief retold for me a story more infamous in its day than the Happy Valley tale of Lord Erroll’s murder, but now completely forgotten. Welshman Dicky Powys, from a family of authors and philosophers and cousin of our ranching neighbour Gilfrid, arrived in Kenya in 1931 to farm. Young Dicky learned the local Maasai vernacular fluently and got on
