\u200cBack when the earth was young<\/p>\n
The eagle, King of the birds, built his castle in heaven.<\/p>\n
He celebrates his feed fat ceremony one a year.<\/p>\n
The party is in heaven so only a bird could go.<\/p>\n
But the\u00a0 tortoise was very determined to go.<\/p>\n
So he went to the birds with a weird request.<\/p>\n
Just give me one feather and that will be all.<\/p>\n
At the end he was more colorful than all the<\/p>\n
Birds.<\/p>\n
The eagle has a rule for all his guests, don’t come to my palace with a commoner’s name.<\/p>\n
A special name you have to take.<\/p>\n
So the peacock called himself the stunning glory<\/p>\n
The hawk said from now he is swifty the fast.<\/p>\n
One by one, every bird took a kingly name<\/p>\n
Cunning tortoise opted for “all of you”.<\/p>\n
‘Why the weird alias’, wondered adaka the cuckoo.<\/p>\n
‘Because I have a feather from each of you’, replied tortoise with a hidden smirk.<\/p>\n
They sang as they go as birds are wont to do.<\/p>\n
Anyi jega n’umu igwe orima do ri ma ri ma do rima<\/p>\n
We are going to heaven<\/p>\n
Anu nwere nku ya puta ije, do ri ma ri ma do ri ma<\/p>\n
If you have a wing join us<\/p>\n
Anu enweghi nku ya nodu ala, do ri ma ri ma do ri ma<\/p>\n
If you don’t have a wing stay back.<\/p>\n
They got to the ceremony in high spirits<\/p>\n
The elephant has prepared a feast fit for a king.<\/p>\n
All the food and drinks is for ‘all of you’<\/p>\n
‘All of you’ please enjoy yourselves<\/p>\n
‘Well’ , tortoise said ‘I am all of you’.<\/p>\n
No one touches a morsel or a drop of wine.<\/p>\n
He ate and ate\u00a0 and drank and drank .<\/p>\n
Leaving behind a bunch of angry birds<\/p>\n
Whose feathers are his bus fare home.<\/p>\n
The birds left angry , everyone taking his borrowed feather with him.<\/p>\n
Leaving cunning tortoise in heaven without a wing.<\/p>\n
Hawk who was the angriest gave him a favor.<\/p>\n
I will take a message to your wife he said with a smirk.<\/p>\n
To bring out your fishing net to catch you when you jump.<\/p>\n
Tortoise saw his wife bring things out of the house.<\/p>\n
But he was too far away to know for sure.<\/p>\n
At her signal he let go and tumbled down to earth.<\/p>\n
Too late, he landed on the hardest objects in his house.<\/p>\n
Broken bottles, a pestle and even his canoe.<\/p>\n
Evidently the hawk has ‘forgotten’ to mention the net.<\/p>\n
So tortoise cracked his shell in tiny pieces.<\/p>\n
Njoku the snail put him together again.<\/p>\n
But his shell was never the same again.<\/p>\n
And that is why tortoise has a cracked shell to this day.<\/p>\n
Igbo Folklore.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u200cBack when the earth was young The eagle, King of the birds, built his castle in heaven. He celebrates his feed fat ceremony one a year. The party is in heaven so only a bird could go. But the\u00a0 tortoise was very determined to go….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117328"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117880,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117328\/revisions\/117880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}