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| Fish Little fish |
The Trial of the Fish
King Eyo resided over the trial of the fish. The first witness to the stand was an elderly lady who lived in the bush near the leopard and his wife. She testified that it appeared that the leopard and his wife were so happy. She believed their marriage was good and that they enjoyed the company of many friends, including the fish. The fish at this time was able to breath air and live on the land. However, she stated that she had observed fish coming to the house when leopard was out of town on business. “What I thought was a friend being helpful, suddenly seemed to be a friendship with lots of benefits. I once saw fish leaving leopard’s house in the early morning hours. He stopped at the threshold of the door and kissed leopard’s wife on the lips before departing,” exclaimed the elderly lady.
Leopard entering the witness box, was openly emotional. Through sobs and tears he told the King that fish had been his best friend and that he had trusted him. “I had asked him to help my wife and look after my house when I was out of town...I had know idea that his idea of taking care of my wife was sleeping with her,” he tearfully stated.
The fish did not take the stand and refused to answer questions regarding the relationship.
After a short recess, King Eyo, announced his verdict. “Fish was wrong. He had violated his friendship with Leopard and would need to be punished. The fish would no longer be able to roam the land and his home would be limited to only the water. Furthermore, all mankind and animals would be encouraged and allowed to catch and consume fish as punishment for his betrayal of friendship.” From that point forward, fish live in the water and are consumed as food.
Writer’s notes: This story with its drama begged to be retold as a Trial Scene. It involves an absent husband, his best friend how falls in love with the absent husband’s wife, the neighbor witness, and a wife who doesn’t say anything. The characters and plot remain true to the original, The Fish and the Leopard’s Wife.
Bibliography: Folk Stories From Southern Nigeria by Elphinstone Dayrell (1910)
Hannah,
ReplyDeleteA few things, do you know that your text appear black? On top of an already very dark background, it is almost impossible to read. Also, you may want to consider adjusting the width of the side bar so that your posts can be centered (right now, part of it is cut off because the page is too wide and you have to scroll over. Basically, it is uncentered). This story was so cute and fun, even though it dealt with a pretty serious betrayal of friendship. I liked how straightforward the narrative style was and how it really used the plot to drive the momentum of the story. Great job!
Hi Hannah,
ReplyDeleteLike Moriah has mentioned, your text is actually black on black so you can't read it unless you highlight it or copy and paste it into a separate word document. Fixing that would be super helpful!
This story was really interesting as a folktale explanation of why fish are stuck in water. One thing I noticed was that all of your sentences are about the same length, which can get a little repetitive and make the story hard to read. Varying your sentence structure would be something fun to try out!
Thanks for the fun read!