One day, birds were holding a feast in the sky and invited animals. They gave some of their feathers to the animals, so they could fly to the sky and attend the feast. Usually, during such a feast, they adopted new names. So, as they got to the feast, the king of the birds said they should all adopt their new names for the feast. The animals and the birds mentioned several funny names which they wanted to be called throughout the period of the feast.
All that while, the tortoise was calm because its mind was on the food that was prepared. It wanted to be the one to eat all of it, and told them that its new name was “We All.”
The bird and the rest of the animals didn’t know the secret behind the tortoise giving itself such a strange name, but they were soon going to find out.
The wine was served and the king of the birds asked: “Who are those to drink this wine?”
Everyone shouted: “We all.”
As they were about to take their share of the wine, the tortoise told them to stop, that it was the only one entitled to drink the wine as its name was “We All”.
Only the tortoise drank the wine, and when it was time to eat the food, the tortoise did the same thing.
The birds and the rest of the animals became angry and left with their feathers.
The tortoise pleaded with the birds as they left to inform the wife to bring outside all soft things in its house and spread them on the ground. It didn’t inform the birds what it intended to do but the birds knew what the tortoise was up to this time.
They went to its wife and told it what the tortoise said: that it should bring out all the hard things that were in its house and spread them outside.
After eating all the food, the tortoise jumped down from the sky, thinking it was soft things that were laid outside. It landed on the hard things, and its shell broke into pieces, and it died. That is why the tortoise’s shell broke till today.
The magic combs
Once upon a time in a village, there was a woman whose occupation was to plait hair. Besides plaiting, she also decorated hair if she was requested to do so. Every woman in the village went to her to plait or decorate her hair.
The woman went to a juju priest in another village requesting that the juju priest should give her a charm which she would put on the women so that their husbands would hate them and love her.
The juju priest gave her a comb to use in combing the women’s hair whenever she plaited them. She did and the husbands of the women whose hair she used the comb to plait hated them and also drove them out of their houses, but they did not love the woman who plaited their hair.
The woman went back to the juju priest to give her another charm that would make the hated women’s former husbands to love her.
The juju priest gave her another comb to use in combing her hair. She did as the juju priest instructed her and all the women’s former husbands loved her, and all the women’s former husbands loved her and went for her. They dragged her in order to take possession of her. She died as they dragged her.
From People, Animals, Spirits and Objects: 1000 Folk Stories of Nigeria edited by Bukar Usman.