Parcourir

A cautionary tale in which a beautiful woman who refuses every suitor marries a stranger assembled from borrowed limbs, and escapes his house by stuffing the watchman's alarm horn with oiled bean cakes.

A co-wives tale in which a girl short-changed by an ìwin follows him to the land of the dead, passes tests of humility and obedience, and returns rich, while the head wife's daughter repeats the journey dishonestly and is killed.

A co-wives tale in which a bird of prey takes a poor woman's baby and returns it with a fortune, and kills the child the head wife brings to repeat the trick, ending with the head wife executed by the king.

A cautionary tale in which a maiden follows a silent handsome stranger into the forest despite three warnings, and he turns out to be a leopard who hunts her back to the village.

The tale of a woman who promises her first child to the spirit of the ìrókò tree in exchange for fertility, cannot pay, and is turned into a bird until her husband carves a wooden child to deceive the tree.

A tale from a country where the inhabitants are heads without bodies, in which one Head borrows a body, arms and legs to win a bride, and loses her when he returns them on the way home.

What the cautionary àlọ́ in this section actually warn against, how severe their endings are, and the pattern that public exposure rather than private harm is the punishment they most often reach for.