A List Of My Favorite Tortoise Stories

Hello good people of read. How are you? I hope you're staying safe in these trying times. Hope work has started well for those of you that resumed today and hope it's still fun for those that haven't. A bunch of people weren't happy with something about yesterday's post. Please read the post again very well. I believe equal effort should be put in as far as a relationship is concerned. I clearly stated this under the point where I said kindness and thoughtfulness or something like that. Thanks for all your criticisms. I think you all are awesome, and I wouldn't like to write things that'll offend you. I was going to write about things ladies should look for in men, but this whole subject is tricky for dinner of us as I've found, so I guess I'll keep that list to myself. I'll be doing something more fun this time. I'll be telling you stories I found interesting as a child about tortoise.

In my country, fables are told every time about the tortoise. He is usually rogue, cunning, tricky and sometimes, just plain wise. Tortoise stories are usually told by the elders to teach children moral lessons. But I like them because they are interesting not because of some lesson someone wants me to learn. Let's get to telling you one or two today.

1) Why Tortoise has a rough shell / Tortoise and the birds

This one is a classic everyone knows this where I come from. Enjoy.

Once upon a time in the animal kingdom, there was famine. It got so bad that parents were considering eating their offspring! Everyone was looking for solutions to their hunger through any means possible.

The birds were not left out in the onslaught caused by the famine. So, they decided to go and meet with God in heaven. They spent weeks scheming and preparing. Unfortunately for the birds, tortoise who was know for notoriety noticed that something was up with the birds. Nothing can really slip past tortoise. He always knows everything going on in the animal kingdom and even outside till far far away places.

He eventually found out what was happening with the birds and that they were indeed going to heaven to dine.

Tortoise approached them and naturally, they refused his request to follow them to heaven. But tortoise who is very cunning to say the least knew that persistence always paid. After hours of begging and pleading each day for a few days, the birds got worn down and finally gave in.

There was just one tiny problem now. Tortoise couldn't fly because he wasn't a bird. When asked how he planned to work around that, he said each bird would give him a feather until he could make wings.

The appointed day came, and tortoise was so excited. He was pleasant throughout the journey and he didn't misbehave once. He even told them stories of far away lands he had visited. He totally entertained them. When they were half way through their journey, he told them that in done cultures, when one was preparing to meet an important guest, it was traditional to change names. The birds knew tortoise had traveled a lot and knew more cultures than them, so they bought it. They have themselves names like ruby, pearl, gold, silver, sparkle, glow, beauty, etc. At the end, tortoise chose the name "all of you". Of course they found it strange but tortoise was always more than strange to them.

They finally got to heaven and the angels found tortoise strange as he was oddly shaped. But he appeared to be their chief spokes person. He answered every question thrown to them and did it with so much confidence and charisma - he could even be their king!

After the formalities, the food came and Tortoise asked "who does all these belong to", and the angels said the food belongs to "all of you". Tortoise immediate reminded the birds his name was all of you. He ate all the food and the birds were sorry, sad, angry, and hungry.

On the trip down, they started to connect their feathers one after the other. By the time they were done, tortoise was freely falling. He started begging them to take a message to his wife. He told them to tell his wife to bring out all the soft materials like down toilet paper, etc to ease his fall. He asked the hawk and was immediately refused. He pleaded with other birds and was refused every time. But he got to the gentle dove and the dove agreed to deliver his message. But when the dice got to his wife, he delivered the opposite of the message. He told her to bring every hard object in the house. She brought out the hoes, cutlasses, guns and stuff like that. When tortoise was close to the ground, he saw his wife moving things and was happy. By the time he realized what was happening, it was too late. He landed on those hard objects and he almost died. But the mystic of the town -snake- preserved his life but his shell would always be rough, and there was nothing snake could do about that.

Hope you guys enjoyed my story. Thanks for always reading and commenting guys. You're awesome.