Reading Notes: Nigerian Folk Stories, Part A

For this week’s reading, I chose to read folk stories from Nigeria. I really enjoyed the story of The Pretty Stranger who Killed the King. It shows an old woman who uses her skills and brains to kill a tyrant king. There's definitely a lot I could do with this story wise. I especially like the moral, which is basically, don't judge a book by its cover, and don't marry someone just because they are pretty.
The story of Why the Bat Flies by Night is actually really horrifying. It makes me wonder if African people boil bats in their soup to make it taste better. Either way, it was a unique way of explaining a bat's habits.
The story of the Disobedient Daughter who Married a Skull is such an odd one and gives me so many questions. Is the skull and actual skull, that floats and talks? Why couldn't he have just stayed in the mortal world? And where did he go after he took Afiong home? I could always try to answer these questions by making my own story, but it would still be extremely odd.
I'm so confused by the story of The King who Married the Cock's Daughter. Did he marry an actual hen, because at the end, it says there is now a law that no one can marry an animal? In the middle it was actually a sweet story, because the king found someone who he finally could love, and in the end he lost her. I like this concept and would definitely want to write about it.
I didn't particularly like the story of The Woman, the Ape, and the Child. It began really good, and then I became really confused. It was unique and interesting, but I didn't like how Okun Archibong was ridiculous enough to kill his child and his wife.
All I can say about the story of The Fish and the Leopard's Wife is ew. I don't even want to know how that would work physically. I do enjoy how the story brought it around so that it explained why fish live in water and why people eat fish.
The story of Why the Worms live Underneath the Ground is really interesting. I honestly really like the idea of animals and humans being able to talk to one another and living together and having the same king. I think this would be fun to write about.
The story of The Elephant and the Tortoise, while a little gruesome, is intriguing in that it explains why elephants have such small eyes and why worms are blind. I think it would be cool to come up with a story like this. I would just need to think of an animal with an interesting feature and come up with a story for why it has that feature. 

The story of Why a Hawk Kills Chickens is such a sad one. It's fascinating though that throughout these stories, animals cross marry and it does not seem to be a problem.
African stories are so unique in that, like the story of Why the Sun and the Moon Live in the Sky, even the sun and moon live in harmony with the earth.
Again, animals living with humans and loving them seems to be so normal in these stories, like the story of Why the Cat Kills Rats. I wonder if the animals are human sized, or if they are their normal size and are still perceived as like humans. It's such an interesting concept and one I could definitely play with.
While very odd, these stories was still full of inspiration, especially in regards to animals and origin stories.

Nigerian Folk Stories collected by Elphinstone Dayrell. Source link: Part A

Image 1 information: "Aso Rock" by Mark Fischer, 2015. Web source: Flickr

Image 2 information: Elephant photo by Kira Hoffmann, 2016. Web source: Pixabay