One of my childhood experiences that I loved was listening to fairy tales by my paternal grandmother, I miss her so much, may her soul continue to rest in peace. Every evening after dinner I and my siblings will gather around her outside to tell us fairy tales. "Tortoise has the most fairy tales in Yoruba land, most tales are always associated with tortoise because of his smart and clever personality just that it mostly use it in the wrong way. There is one of its story I can never forget because it's tells how tortoise got his crack backs. You are already anticipating the story right? 😂 Let me briefly tell it
It's title "Tortoise and the birds"
Once upon a time ,there was hunger in the land ,they are experiencing famine.Comes a day ,the birds discovered a feast was going to be held in the sky,the birds told tortoise their friend but he couldn't fly cos he has no feathers,he begged the birds to borrow him their feathers, they did as a true friends ,each one of them gave him one out of their feathers and he was happy.
The day came and they're ready to fly but before they flew up, tortoise called everyone together and told them he wants to change his name right that instance before going that when they get there they should call him that "All of you",they were surprised and couldn't figure out the motive behind his decision,they agreed and flew to the venue.
When they got there, the host said the this food is for all of you, he quickly stood up to collect it and face the birds that you know that is my name so this food belongs to me alone, I ate it all alone, leaving the birds with nothing, the birds got angry and collected their feathers one after the other until he was left with no feathers,they flew home and left him stranded, he pleaded one of them to atleast relay message to his wife to place soft things on the floor for him for his landing.
When the birds got to his wife ,it changed the message to hard things to be place down for him ,his wife did as she was told and when tortoise landed,he landed on stones and lot of sharp objects,then his shell broke into pieces, the villagers helped him arranged it back but it wasn't perfect anymore, so that was how he's got a rough shell
I so much believed this story as a kid,I believed tortoise really got a cracked shell from a fall from the sky. After years of growth do I now understand it was meant to teach lessons ,that greed and selfishness will only lead us to destruction. The stories never fade away. I will surely tell my kids as well.
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