Tortoise. And there he stood in his hard shell full of food and wine but without any
wings to fly home. He asked the birds to take a message for his wife, but they all
refused. In the end Parrot, who had felt more angry than the others, suddenly changed
his mind and agreed to take the message.
"Tell my wife,' said Tortoise,'to bring out all the soft things in my house and
cover the compound with them so that I can jump down from the sky without very great
danger.'
"Parrot promised to deliver the message, and then flew away. But when he
reached Tortoise's house he told his wife to bring out all the hard things in the house.
And so she brought out her husband's hoes, machetes, spears, guns and even his cannon.
Tortoise looked down from the sky and saw his wife bringing things out, but it was too
far to see what they were. When all seemed ready he let himself go. He fell and fell and
fell until he began to fear that he would never stop falling. And then like the sound of
his cannon he crashed on the compound." ';,; "Did he die?" asked Ezinma.
"No," replied Ekwefi. "His shell broke into pieces. But there was a great
medicine man in the neighbourhood. Tortoise's wife sent for him and he gathered all the
bits of shell and stuck them together. That is why Tortoise's shell is not smooth."
"There is no song in the story," Ezinma pointed out.
"No," said Ekwefi. "1 shall think of another one with a song. But it is your turn
now."
"Once upon a time," Ezinma began, "Tortoise and Cat went to wrestle against
Yams--no, that is not the beginning. Once upon a time there was a great famine in the
land of animals. Everybody was lean except Cat, who was fat and whose body shone as
if oil was rubbed on it..."
She broke off because at that very moment a loud and high-pitched voice broke
the outer silence of the night. It was Chielo, the priestess of Agbala, prophesying. There
was nothing new in that. Once in a while Chielo was possessed by the spirit of her god