The Flying Tortoise

Do birds and tortoises with the same feathers flock together? Yes, they do in The Flying Tortoise by Ben Oduwole.

Tortoise's wish to soar with the birds skyrockets this tale right into the hearts of children. The Birds are famished, and they are searching for sweet fruit. Their hunger drives them to make an unusual pact with Tortoise: "If you guide us to a place where the fruits are plentiful, we will agree to teach you how to fly." Tortoise is eager to start his newest adventure. After he glues bird feathers onto his shell, he climbs onto the back of one of the biggest birds and takes off in search of a meal. Tortoise is true to his word. He guides the birds to a rich and fertile field. As The Birds prepare tasty bundles to enjoy at home, greedy tortoise prepares the biggest bundle of them all. Follow the adventures of Tortoise, the Birds, and the many other amazing characters that grace Oduwole's fables. You will treasure the savannah, the jungle, and the underwater settings that decorate this delightful collection of original African fables.

Yoruba Proverbs:

• Whoever wants to do what no one has done before, he or she will see what no one has seen before!
• Whoever opens the coconut shell with his head will not eat out of it!
• Whoever spits upward,  will receive it with his/her eyes!                   

Yoruba Proverbs:

• Proverbs help to drive the point home
• The door doesn’t disturb the thief from entering in the house, we
  only put the door not to hold the goat back.
• He who goes to fetch the water from the pot says he sees a snake, what about
  the person who went to fetch the water from the river?
  
  
  

Duel under the Moon

    
Once upon a time in a village, there was a very beautiful girl that was contested by two young men, and she didn’t know which of the two to choose, because she liked them both. She didn’t want to disappoint any of them, so she kept dragging on.
Though Muthinda knew that she had to choose one, so she promised to make her choice during the  new yam harvest celebration.
The new yam and other farm produce were usually first offered to the gods to thank and appease them before the folks could consume them.
During this event, young men and women could  marry, or choose a partner, and at that time  Muthinda was contended by two young men. She didn’t know what to do, even if she had a preference among the two. Mudinga was a shy, but kind and gentle, while Kalu his rival, was arrogant, and liked flirting with many village girls.

Princess Kurama

Once upon a time, there was a young, beautiful princess in the land with a very strong character.
She was very famous throughout the kingdom as the “golden spinster”, because of her refusal to take husband.
Many young princes and middle aged lords tried in vain to woo her into marriage, but she resisted them all.
“I’m not ready yet!” She would tell them. The princess remained single while she played and teased the men promising to choose one of them as partner soon.
“Tomorrow, I’ll give you my answer.” She would promise again and again, but tomorrow didn’t come.
Then Kurama became the leader of her army and decided to lead the men to wars by herself.
Underneath her, served many capable generals and solders of valour, but not in any of them did she found any to marry.

The Vulture

Once upon a time, in the savannah, there was a big vulture that was  eating all the time much, and wherever there was a party, he was always the first to get there.
He would fly in and hover over meats and all that was edible to him, trying to consume as many pieces as he could get. In actual fact he was eating always between meals, that is continuously and never stopped to eat.
All the other birds, and animals wondered how he could ate that much, consuming food when he was not even hungry. After the Lions and Leopard had caught and ate, the vulture will arrive to clean up the rest. As time went by as he didn’t stop to eat between meals, he began to loose the hairs on his head little by little.
Still the vulture continued in his habit, and he completely lost his hairs and became bald
up till today. That’s why the Vulture is bald, without hairs on his head!

The End

         Yoruba Proverbs     

• Sometime a treatment that occurs to the wife is likely to occur to the mistress.
• Instead of putting in the world a thousand of Idiots, it’s much better to give birth to
• one that’ll be a leader.   The house of the King that got burnt, will only add beauty to it (when it is renovated).   

Shango didn't hang - (Oba Koso)

Once upon a time in the Yoruba kingdom, there was a powerful king called Shango, and as time went on, some of his army generals and counsellors became so powerful in the land that they constrained him to abduct.
The mutiny was so great and few loyal friends, counsellors and army wanted to fight to maintain him in power, but Shango knew that will blow into a bloody civil war, so he decided to step down. He was sent into exile by the new ruling council, so he took his loyal people with him and left the reign.
As they journeyed on, many other men left him one by one and returned to Oyo city. When he had only few of them left, for sadness, anguish and fear to continue alone the journey by himself, went aside from them, and decided to terminate the agony.

A Cruel King

Once upon a time, there was a cruel king that treated his people very badly for any little thing they did wrongly. Naturally, he was not liked by the villagers and for many years, the people lived in fear of him.
If someone did any little thing wrongly, he would make the person to be flogged in public, but one day, something strange happened. A very hungry young man mistakenly plucked an apple from the king's garden, and the king saw him in action. So he asked the hungry young man to be brought before him so he could give him an exemplary punishment for stealing the king's fruit.
The king preferred to see the matured fruits to fall down and rotten rather than to give them out to the poor.
When the young man was brought before the king, the villagers had thought that the king would just flog them, and let him go, but they were wrong!
The king decided to behead the young man with a sharp sword.
When the villagers knew about that, they came in hundreds to plead with the king to spare the man, but the king would not yield to their begging.
So the king decided to do the head cutting personally, but when he did that, the head instead of it rolling to the ground, the cut head jumped onto the king's right arm, and it stocked there. 
He tried to shake the head off, but it won't fall, so the cruel king had to live with with it, and each time he tried to take food or drink to his mouth, the cut head would snap it from his hand and eat it.
The king didn't know what to do, for he was very hungry. That continued for many months with the head impeding the king from eating and drinking.  He became lean and sick until he died for hunger,
      

 The End


          Yoruba Proverbs

• There’s no king as God.
• Man proposes, God disposes.  
• There’s nothing hidden to God.