The unit I chose for this reading post was Nigerian Folktales. My favorite story was The Disobedient Daughter Who Married a Skull.
This story about the disobedient daughter was a wildly creative and imaginative one. The story was about a snooty, beautiful girl who decided she would only marry the most handsome man in the area. This news intrigued a skull from the ghostly world and he set forth to win her affections. This is where the story gets imaginative. The skull decides to borrow body parts from the most handsome men around him. Once he was finished acquiring the body parts, he won the fair maiden's affections and they got married.
Once he returned to his world, he returned all the borrowed body parts and was just a skull again. Even though the maiden was frightened, she stayed with him and helped him and his mother for quite some time. The skull's mother took pity on her and sent her back home on a gentle breeze. The young maiden promised her parents that she would not be so vain anymore and would marry whomever they chose for her. She ended up marrying her father's friend and lived happily ever after for many years.
One of the morals of this story is don't judge a book by its cover. There are many nice looking men in the world, but just because they look nice doesn't mean they are nice as they appear. Another moral in the story is to listen to your parents because they have you best interest at heart. All her parents were trying to do was marry her off to a man who may not have been the best looking guy, but one that would be able to take care of her properly. She didn't listen and ended up marrying a stranger who turned out to be something completely different from what she expected.
I like the fact that the maiden was portrayed as a brave and loyal character even under the strange circumstances of marrying a skull. She may have been a stubborn character in the beginning of the story, but she became a very loving and devoted character to the husband that was chosen for her in the end of the story. I liked this story because the main character, the young maiden, learned a valuable lesson and it made her a more humble person in the end.
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