Friday, April 26, 2019

Fairy Tale and Folktale Fridays #37: Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears



Hey there!  Welcome to "Fairy Tale and Folktale Fridays," a new feature on my blog where I discuss about some fairy tales and folktales I have read throughout the years. 



Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears





 


Type: Folktale

Country of Origin: Africa

Main Character Hero or Heroine: Heroine and Hero

Recommend?: Yes! 



The story starts off with a mosquito telling an iguana a lie and the iguana was so annoyed by this lie that he ended up putting sticks in his ears in order to not hear the mosquito anymore.  As the iguana walked off, a python came by and told the iguana good morning.  But, since the iguana had sticks in his ears, he couldn't hear what the python was saying and this ended up scaring the python.  The python than slithered into a rabbit hole, frightening a rabbit, who then ran out of its hole to find a safe place to hide from the python.  The crow then saw the rabbit running for its life and it ended up making a warning call in the forest.  The monkey heard this warning call and started jumping in the trees.  But then, the monkey accidentally landed on a branch that fell on one of the baby owls and killed it.  When the mother owl found out that one of her babies died, she was so sad that she refused to wake up the sun until she finds out who killed her baby.  It was then that all the animals in the forest came together to form a council and decide who is responsible for causing so much trouble in the forest. 




I have always loved this tale!  It was probably one of the best cause and effect type of stories I have ever read and it was interesting seeing how fast fear can spread in a community.  The story was also good at teaching children about how misunderstandings between people can cause problems if not handled carefully and I enjoyed seeing the effects that the mosquitoes' actions had on the other animals.  However, I was sad that the baby owl was killed in all this commotion.






1. Were you upset when the baby owl was killed?

Yes, I was very upset when the baby owl died since I usually have problems with books that deal with the death of a child.

2. Was there a way that the animals could have handled this situation better?

I think that if the python had just taken the sticks out of the iguana's ears in the first place, then this whole situation wouldn't have happened.  Or if the animals had actually stopped to think about what the actual problem was, they could have avoided killing someone by accident.  Also, the mosquito shouldn't have told any lies the way he did.



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