Cautionary Tales and What They Threaten
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.
Collector
No collector is named in the source consulted.
The tale in brief
Àlọ́ are told by an older person to children in the evening, and a large proportion of the tales collected in this section are warnings. This file sets the cautionary tales side by side to ask what they warn against, how they punish, and what that says about the pedagogy. It does not retell them; each is told in its own file. Two findings are worth stating at the top. The endings are considerably more severe than a modern reader expects. And the punishment these tales reach for most often is not injury or death but being found out in public.
The tale
Not recorded in the source consulted.
Variants
Not recorded in the source consulted.