Reading Notes: Nigerian Folk Stories, Part B

I plan to take notes the same way that I did yesterday. I really enjoyed reading these folk stories so I look forward to reading the rest of them. 

The Story of the Lightning and the Thunder

I like how creative this story is. It is something that I never would have thought of on my own. It is interesting that the King made the son lightning. The ram was in trouble for constantly lighting the forest of fire, yet he turned him into something that can still light stuff on fire. Lightning is dangerous and can damage people and other things! I like the idea though that the sheep/mother is scolding the son/ram to calm down and rebuking what he is doing. 

lightning

Why Dead People are Buried

Dead people were supposed to be able to come back alive by putting wood ashes on them. This is the message that the dog was supposed to send but he got distracted. Eventually the King sent the sheep out to deliver the message but he too got distracted. Soon after the sheep made up his own idea on what the message was because he forgot. The dog soon remembered the message but no one believed him because they had already heard from the sheep. I feel bad for the dog. Dogs do not deserve the be not treated kindly. They also are not liars. I did not care for this folk story due to this. Maybe I could write a story from the dogs point of view. It would be sad at the end, but it would be interesting to see his thought process of having the message, getting distracted, remembering the message, telling the message, then be called a liar. 

I was surprised that these stories did not contain more grand language. They were all very straightforward. 

Bibliography

Nigerian Folk Stories written by Elphinstone Dayrell, online source