Episode Details

Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria — Part 3 of 3 (How the Tortoise Overcame the Elephant and the Hippopotamus · Why the Moon Waxes and Wanes · The King and the Nsiat Bird · Concerning the Hawk and the Owl · The Election of the King Bird)

The kind Moon lets a starving old woman carve her supper from her side, and still waxes and wanes in the sky; the tortoise wagers the elephant, and then the hippopotamus, that neither can pull him from his place — and wins both wagers; King 'Ndarake marries the 'Nsiat bird's daughter though her family always bears twins, and the birds carry the children away to the town trees rather than let the old custom take them; the king's faithful hawk, granted any creature he can take as his pension, learns from the owl to fear the injured who keep silent; the little 'Nsasak bird cheats through the king's seven-day fasting contest; and when the birds quarrel over a king, the great black-and-white fishing eagle settles the election. A selection of tales from Dayrell's collection. Source: Elphinstone Dayrell, Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria, West Africa (1910), public domain; modernised in-house edition.

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