Essay On Folk Tales

Folk tales:

Folk tales or legends are fairytales about animals and humans, most of those stories do not specify the place or time of occurrence events of that story but it begins and ends typically in a certain way. For instance, lot of folk tales begin with the words "once upon a time" and ends with the words "and they all lived happily." Furthermore, Stories on the tongues of animals is one of the most common types of folk tales popular among the people, and usually designed to uphold the people's good behavior and morality.

One of these tales, for example, describe a race between the tortoise and the rabbit and the gasket, although very slow tortoise animal has won the race, because the rabbit stopped foolishly and stupidity to sleep.

However, some riddles include an ambiguous answer for example in this Nigerian riddle, “Ntop nyod, nyod okoduk odu, nsio uyio, uyio akayat owo” The translation in English is as follow,
“I throw a dice; the dice runs into a hole”. Hence, the answer is that when I talk or say something my speech bothered others, but this respond is somehow not clear enough for the listener or the audience. Generally speaking, riddles regard as a means which develop the mental capacity and intellectual skills as they should have meanings and benefits for everyone.

• Models of African Riddles:
Table 01: Examples of African riddles.

Riddles Answers Country
Who owns a house which doesn’t have rooms for the guests? A turtle Yoruba of Nigeria
Who is braver than a Maasai warrior? Two Maasai warriors East Africa
I have a house without a door or a window. An egg Kikuyu in Kenya
What is the thing which stays between two swords but never gets cut? The tongue Kikuyu in Kenya
What is the thing that cries in the bush without bowels? A drums Africa
When he is going, he faces Oyo, when he is returning, he faces Oyo. What is it? A drum with a double face