🇳🇬 10 stories · 15 ethnic groups
Nigeria
From the moonlit compounds of Igboland to the savannahs of the north and the palm-fringed villages of the Yoruba west, Nigeria's storytellers have shaped a parable tradition unmatched in richness. These tales were told after the evening meal, when the village gathered beneath the stars and the elders opened their mouths with wisdom older than the rivers.
Browse by ethnic group
Igbo · 6 min · Easy
The Tortoise and the Birds
When the birds were invited to a feast in the sky, the cunning tortoise begged for a feather from each and went with them — and tricked them out of every morsel. But what travels up on borrowed wings must come down.
Igbo · Yoruba · 6 min · Easy
The Cracked Shell
A tortoise so proud of his wisdom decided to gather all the wisdom of the world into one gourd and hang it where no one else could reach it. What he learned on the climb up the tree changed him forever.
Hausa · 5 min · Easy
The Lion and the Clever Hare
A lion grew tired of hunting and demanded that one animal a day walk into his cave to be eaten. The forest obeyed, weeping — until a small hare went whistling toward the cave with a plan no one expected.
Yoruba · Igbo · 4 min · Easy
The Palm Tree and the Bamboo
Side by side on the edge of the village stood a proud palm and a humble bamboo. Then the great storm came down from the hills, and only one of them was still standing in the morning.
Yoruba · 6 min · Medium
The Talking Drum
When a young drummer inherited his grandfather's sacred talking drum, he had the power to speak across three villages. He learned the hard way that a tongue made of leather is still a tongue.
Yoruba · 5 min · Easy
The Lazy Farmer
Two neighbours received the same land, the same rain, and the same seeds. By harvest, only one of them had food in his barn — and the other had a hundred good reasons.
Igbo · 6 min · Medium
The Child Who Ignored the Elders
A young hunter was warned not to enter a certain forest. He went anyway, because the warnings sounded like the talk of old men. The forest taught him what no old man could have said.
Yoruba · Hausa · 4 min · Easy
The Bundle of Sticks
An old father, tired of watching his children quarrel, gathered them under the mango tree with a bundle of sticks and a single, quiet question.
Hausa · Fulani · 5 min · Easy
The Calabash of Water
In the worst drought anyone could remember, a traveller crossed the bush with only one calabash of water left. Three strangers were waiting for him on the road, and what he did with that water reshaped his whole life.
Yoruba · 4 min · Easy
The Firefly and the Moon
A small firefly was tired of being small. He climbed to the highest leaf in the forest and shouted at the moon — and the moon, in her kindness, taught him what his little light was actually for.