African Heroes, Legends and Myths

"Long, long ago, when the world was young, all the animals lived together in one country. In those days there were not as many tortoises as there are today but only one tortoise, Mbe, the ancestor of all tortoises..." In this idyllic world, a time of famine comes. Tortoise, in desperation, journeys out in search of food. At last he comes upon a palm tree with "thrice four hundred" ripe palm fruits. Atop this palm tree, one of the fruits slips from Tortoise's hand. Unwilling to give up even one of these succulent fruits, Tortoise descends. But the fruit has fallen into a hole, and Tortoise follows.

A man takes his family of two wives--the senior wife with many children and the other wife with just one--to work on their distant farm at the border of the human and the spirit lands. They are careful to return home before nightfall when the spirits come out to tend their own crop of yams. Upon returning home, however, the only son of the younger wife finds that he has forgotten his flute in the fields. It is a flute he made with his own hands, and he is determined to retrieve it despite his parents' pleas to stay home.

Three brothers were traveling through the dense rain forest jungle. They had been traveling on foot for almost a full day and night was falling. They needed a suitable place to rest for the night, a place where they would be safe from prowling animals of the night

A long time ago spirits lived along side men on the same lands, to avoid clashes among men and spirit, certain days were set aside for the ethereal beings to go about the land with their activities. During these days, men were forbidden to go out of their houses to their farms or work

Once there lived in a village, a hunter, who had a wife. When she was under pregnancy, old people of the village warned the husband, “It is time now for you to suspend killing bush animals, for if you continue to do so you will kill the baby that your wife is going to deliver when it is time, and she will deliver of a terrible creature in the form of a baby when it is time for her to deliver.”

There was a man who had two wives.The senior wife was called the Iyale while the junior wife was called the Iyawo. The senior wife was very mean to the Iyawo. She made life difficult for Iyawo such that the Iyawo never had enough food to feed her children or  provide nice clothes for them to wear. The nicer the Iyawo was, the meaner the Iyale became.

Many years ago, in a town called Ebu there was an old woman who always came to the market to buy bundles of fire wood. One fateful morning, a young boy was walking down the road when he saw the old woman with a heap of fire wood on her head. He offered to help her and she accepted. Having walked on for about 15 minutes, he asked her if they had not gotten to her house, she replied no

Once upon a time in the village of Aiyegberu, there lived a maiden called Olajumoke. She was the most beautiful woman in all the lands As news of her great beauty spread, suitors came lining asking for her hand in marriage but she refused them all. None of them was handsome enough to match her beauty she proclaimed

Long time ago, Dog used to live in forest like his cousins Fox and Wolves but there was a terrible famine in the land so great that the animals decided to eat the old amongst them in turn.

One upon a time in the animal kingdom, the tortoise and the monkey had a disagreement, the monkey had cheated the tortoise and he had promised he would make him pay. The monkey laughed at the tortoise telling him that he was too slow and stupid to do anything about it.

Agbede was a prominent hunter in Agbado Village. One day he killed a leopard and made way with her cub

Once upon a time, a feast was organized for birds in the sky. Tortoise persuaded birds that he would love to go with them but the birds refused to allow Tortoise go with them because besides not being a bird he had a reputation for being cunning and greedy

Long time ago, there was a man called “Aigboran”. He got married to the most beautiful woman in all the lands, her name was Aaye. He cherished her, he worshiped her like a goddess. News of his wife's beauty spread everywhere, some came to his village just to take a peek at her, because of this Aaye's business was booming. She sells beans like most other women at the village market. She was always the first to go home. But it wasn't enough for Aigboran that his wife came home early, he became jealous because he knew his closest friends had eyes for her

Long time ago, there was a woman called Olurombi. This woman was  unhappy as she couldn't bare a child for her husband. She tried so many remedies but all to no avail. So she went to a spirit–tree (god) called lroko Oluwere. Iroko was a powerful tree god, people go to him and requested for things they needed from it. At the end of their requests, they will make a vow with the god to give something back as appreciation

There are so many legends surrounding the origin of Oduduwa.Oral tradition on creation says he is the favourite son of Olodumare. As such, he (or she, as the primordial Oduduwa is gender fluid) was sent from heaven to create the earth upon the waters, a mission he/she had usurped from his/her consort and sibling Obatala, who had been equipped with a snail shell filled with sand and a rooster to scatter the said sand inorder to create land. These beliefs are held by Yoruba traditionalists to be the cornerstone of their story of creation. Obatala and Oduduwa here are represented symbolically by a calabash, with Obatala taking the top and Oduduwa taking the bottom. In this narrative, Oduduwa is also known as Olofin Otete, the one who took the Basket of Existence from Olodumare Oral traditional historians believe he was an exiled prince of a foreign people who left his homeland with a retinue and journeyed south, subsequently settling amongst the aboriginal Yoruba at some point in th...