the lightning bird took my great-aunt's blood (Pondoland, what the old people told us)

This one is from the Eastern Cape, Pondo side, where my mother's people are. They call it impundulu, the lightning bird. Not a metaphor for lightning, an actual bird, size of a person, black and white, red legs, and only women can see its true shape. The story in our family is that a witch keeps it ……