A List Of My Favorite Tortoise Stories (2)

Hello guys how are you doing? I hope you enjoyed your day? It's a proper work day now I believe - as we're already almost in mid January. I hope you're all doing what you love as it makes life and work a little easier. Take care of yourselves and stay safe my friends.

Today is just a continuation of yesterday's writing. I'll be doing more fables. I hope you enjoyed my story yesterday? It was a hilarious story about Mr Tortoise and his greed and why he has a broken shell. Today, I'll probably tell one in which he is not bad, but cunning. Let's get to it.

2) Tortoise and the Lion

Once upon a time, in a far far away igbo state called Edo was a small tribe called obiinazi. The new king of the of obiinazi was always the most powerful even in the days when his father was king, and his father was extremely powerful. Very few people ever saw his father, but those that saw him testified to the fact that smoke always preceded his arrival anywhere that's why he was called ezeina which means the king of fire. His son, was an entirely different story. His son could do anything short of giving life.

As a result of such power, the new king was known as Ezelese literally meaning the king that can do. As soon as Ezelese became king, he met with the animals and told them he was going to stay out of their affairs on the condition that they keep the forest silent. This implied the lion was still king, and the predators could still prey on the weak, but they just needed to do it silently. Now, they are animals, but they aren't stupid. They knew of the Eze's power. There's a proverb among the igbo people that you don't tell a blind man that rain is falling. You didn't need to tell the animals the horrors that would befall the unfortunate ones that broke the law given to them by the Eze. It made things difficult for the predators to get prey because they were used to chasing down prey and roaring to scare them out of hiding and making a lot of noise in the process of hunting. Now the Lion -the most ferocious and egotistical of them all -got tired of trying to sneak up on prey just to eat only for them to run away at the slightest hint of his arrival. He then called a meeting of all the animals. They had to obey since he was still king. He told them his problem and made a strange demand.

Now in those days, there was respect. You couldn't disobey a direct order. The lion demanded that the animals bright their children one after the other as food for him to eat once a day. They were supposed to rotate the task. It was the best idea if the peace of the jungle were to be preserved. But they needed to choose someone to start it. They all kept quiet and the tortoise got either tired or bored and volunteered to go first. This surprised and relieved everybody. They were so happy their children would live another day.

The next day came, and the tortoise did not show at the appointed time. After a minute, the lion who had been salivating all night started getting angry. He paced up and down. After one hour, he was furious. He kept grumbling to himself "why won't my food be here?" "What's taking him so long to come and feed me" "I'll definitely kill him when I see him!" He threatened all sorts of things he must have thought were worse than what he was already going to do. After six hours, the tortoise finally appeared. He was strolling leisurely to the palace. The lion asked in the most furious tone ever why he came late. The tortoise narrated a story of how an impostor wanted to eat his food and how he had to hide for a long time to evade the impostor. This made the lion even more furious, but he was angry at the impostor now not the tortoise.

So he said "after I eat you, you'll take me to the impostor" "no my Lord I can't wait to be your food but I'll be too dead to show him to you if you eat me first" the lion was charmed by the tortoise's humility and reference then he replied "that's okay my loyal subject, take me to this impostor you speak of and we'll see if I still have room for you in my stomach when I'm done with him." The Tortoise bowed and stated leading the way. They weren't to a very remote party of the jungle to where there was a very deep river. The Tortoise then told him to look inside. The lion roared and the impostor (his reflection) roared back. The lion hated his fangs, but his impostor was determined to copy him to the vet last detail. Out of anger, the lion jumped into the river never to be seen again.

How you guys enjoyed this one too. I'm not that much of a story teller, but I tried to narrate it the way I remember reading it years ago. Thanks for your support my friends. You're awesome!!!