Sunday, October 15, 2006

Adapting tales: posted folktale of the Tortoise and the Princess

A long while back, while searching for West African folktales, I stumbled across The Internet Sacred Text Archive where there is have a collection of old books online. Amongst them are two books, Yoruba Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa by A.B. Ellis (1894) and Yoruba Legends by M. I. Ogumefu (1929), both of which contain a nice collection of folktales. I remember some elements from several of the folktales but some are unfamiliar.
I thought about posting the stories here but hesitated for long, after all, the stories are already online. However, I have decided to put hesitation aside because:

  1. I remember some of those stories a little differently and would like to rewrite it as I remember
  2. There are some comments I would like to add to some of the stories
  3. I need to stop creating excuses that lead to inaction

Here’s a story about the princess who never speaks from A.B. Ellis’s book. I remember hearing this story (even tried unsuccessfully for the part of the princess for a school play in primary school) but always thought it was an adaptation of Christian Andersen’s fairytale about the princess who never spoke until a stranger (I believe he had a duck) came along and formed a long train of people (people joined the train and became glued together), the princess saw them and could not contain her laughter. The stranger won half the kingdom.



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