Reading Notes: Nigerian Folk Stories, Part B

 

Lightning in the Sky. Source: Flickr.

    The first story that I read was "The Story of the Lightning and the Thunder." I loved this story a lot, and I think it might be one of my favorites from this unit. This story is another origin story and tells the story of how lightning and thunder ended up in the sky. The story starts with talking about how there was a mother sheep named Thunder and that she had a son named Lightning that was a ram. The ram would get angry and do a lot of things causing damage to the town. He would burn buildings and knock down trees. His mother would yell at him loudly to stop. Eventually, people got angry and told the king about the ram. The king banished the sheep and the ram to the sky, so the ram wouldn't cause as much damage. To this day, you can still see the ram trying to cause damage in the sky, and you can hear thunder trying to tell the lightning to stop.

    I like the idea of a ram being named Lightning. Lightning is very sporadic, loud, and does seem to have a temper. I think these characteristics truly embody a young male ram. I really loved the character choice!

    The second story I wanted to write about was called "Why the Moon Waxes and Wanes." This is another origin story! This story talks about why the moon stays in the sky at night and isn't seen during the day. It also talks about why the moon will shrink in size and get larger as well. In short, the story discusses an old woman who is poor and starving. The moon would come down to earth and feed the woman with the food the moon was made of. The moon would get smaller and smaller, producing less and less light. People started to complain and found out, so they approached the woman one night while in the act. The moon got scared and never returned to earth again. The moon still gets smaller and larger to this day.

    I am looking forward to writing an origin story! I'm not sure which one to pick yet!!

Source for stories: Folk Stories From Southern Nigeria by Elphinstone Dayrell (1910).