Episode 83 – The Terrible Tortoise – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 83 Show Notes

Source: Nigerian Folklore

This week on MYTH, we’re headed to Nigeria for stories of an uncommon villain – the tortoise. You’ll learn why you should never step over sticks, why magic drums are more trouble than they’re worth, and why you can’t trust your kids. Then, in Gods and Monsters, it’s a story of treachery, mutilation, and delicious shrimps. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 83, “The Terrible Tortoise”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
This week’s stories come from Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria, collected in 1910 by Elphinstone Dayrell. Efriam Duke was the king of Calabar, a great city located on the Calabar and Great Kwa rivers, though it was then known as Akwa Akpa. He was a good and just king who preferred peace to war (a good quality to have in a king). He was aided in this desire by a wonderful drum that, when beaten, created a rich bounty of food and drink for everyone around. Whenever one of his neighbors got all riled up and declared war against his kingdom, he would call a great council of all the opposing kings and beat his magic drum. To everyone’s great surprise (although I have to wonder how many times you can pull the same admittedly cool trick before people figure out what’s what), they found a feast waiting for them instead of fighting. Tables were laid out as far as the eye could see laden with all sorts of delicious dishes including fufu (a dough-like delicacy made from kneaded cassava), palm oil chop (a cubed chicken breast cooked in spiced palm oil), various soups, baked yams, okra, and of course plenty of palm wine. It’s hard to stay angry with a full belly, and each time, everyone would walk away from the feast having decided that maybe war wasn’t necessary after all.
Of course, magic never comes without a price and this drum was no different. The owner of the priceless artifact had to be extremely careful not to step over any fallen sticks or tree branches ever ever ever. If the king made this particular mistake, all of the food summoned by the drum would immediately go rancid. Worse, 300 Egbo warriors (which means ‘leopard’ and referred to a mysterious forest being that could only be seen by initiates of a secret society) would appear to beat him and all of his invited guests with whips and sticks until they were bruised and bloody.
As you might expect, Efriam Duke was a very rich man. I mean, it’s good to be the king. He had many successful farms and hundreds of slaves (which I don’t like nearly as much as the drum), as well as a huge store of palm wine and seed reserves. He also had 50 wives and a whole passel of children. It was good that he had a magic food drum with so many mouths to feed. He was also a very generous man (which is probably easier when you have literally limitless food) and hosted a great feast every few months. Invitations would go out to everyone in the surrounding countryside, and I do mean everyone. Not only all of his subjects, but the wild animals as well – elephants, hippopotamuses, leopards, buffalo, and antelopes all came in peace for in those days, all of the animals were on good terms with the king of Calabar and agreed to a mutual peace during the feast. All of them (including the animals) were jealous of the king’s magic drum and wanted it for themselves, but the king guarded it carefully
On one particular morning, Ikwor Edem, one of the king’s wives, took her daughter down to the spring for a bath to try and ease her yaws, a painful type of sore, that covered her small body. As they went down to the water, a tortoise happened to be hanging out in a palm tree (and yes, tortoises can totally climb trees) biting off nuts for his midday meal. As he was pulling them off the tree, one of the palm nuts fell down to the ground just in front of the child. The poor girl was in pain from her awful sores and the sudden tasty treat landing in front of her was a welcome distraction. She cried for the little morsel and her mother, not thinking anything of it, happily picked it up and handed it to her daughter.
No sooner had the girl swallowed the palm nut than the tortoise climbed his way down from the tree and waddled over to Ikwor. “Do you know where my palm nut went? I dropped it, but now I don’t see where it went.” “Oh, um, yeah. I gave that to my daughter. I didn’t know it belonged to anyone – I assumed it just fell off the tree there.” The tortoise recognized Ikwor Edem and, thinking quickly, he decided that this would be a great opportunity to try and get the magical drum for himself. “Well now you know – that was my nut. I am a poor tortoise and it’s very hard for me to climb such a tall, tall tree. I struggled to get that precious food for my family, but you took it carelessly and gave it to your daughter. You, who have so much. I wonder what the king would think if I went to him and told him that one of his wives had stolen food from one of his poorest subjects.” This was, by the laws of the time, a very, very serious crime.
“Honorable tortoise, it was never my intention to steal anything. I saw the palm nut on the ground and assumed it had fallen to the ground by pure chance. My little girl is suffering, and I thought this might make her feel a bit better. I did give her the nut, but I swear I didn’t steal anything. My husband the king is a rich man, as you know, and if you have any complaint against me or my sweet child, I will take you to him to make your petition.” She finished washing her daughter and cleaning her sores and then, true to her word, she took the tortoise to see the king.
She told Efiram all that had occurred at the spring. The king understood the gravity of the situation and asked the tortoise what he might accept as fair compensation for the honest mistake. In exchange for the single palm nut, the king offered the greedy tortoise money, fine cloth, bountiful seeds, and even the rare and expensive palm oil. One after the other, the tortoise refused each offer. Then, the generous and genuinely concerned king made the same mistake Pwyll and Rhiannon made in Episode 80 – he didn’t watch his words. “Well then, my good tortoise, what will you accept for the missing palm nut? You may have anything you like, whatever you think is fair.”
You know that evil grin the Grinch makes in How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the classic animated version of course)? Yeah, the tortoise smiled that creepy-ass smile. Jackpot. He pointed to the king’s drum in pride of place on a shelf at the back of the room. “That. That drum is the only thing I will accept.” The king knew he’d been played, but there was no backing out now. He’d made a very public and very poorly worded promise, so now he was fucked. “Very well, Mr. Tortoise. The drum is yours. Take it.” In an act of malicious compliance however, he didn’t share the little caveat about the 300 secret warriors waiting for the drum owner to step over a stick. The king was nobody’s fool.
The tortoise laughed all the way back home to his family. He hadn’t been lying about gathering food for his family, or about how difficult it was for him to pull together enough for all of the hungry mouths that depended on him. His wife and children were just as delighted when he told them all that had transpired and showed them the magic drum that he was now the master of. They asked him for a demonstration of its power since they were all very hungry. The tortoise was all too happy to oblige, eager to show off his newfound wealth and power. His long walk had made him more than a bit peckish himself, and so he took out the drum.
Everyone had been a guest at a few of the king’s famous banquets, and so the tortoise began to beat the drum the way he had seen. Immediately, food began to appear from thin air. In no time, they had a great feast laid out full of all the most sumptuous delicacies. For the next three days, the tortoise family whiled away the days feasting and getting fat. The reptilian patriarch was thrilled with how this had all turned out and decided that simply feasting amongst themselves wasn’t enough – power this great needed to be shown off.
Thus, the tortoise sent out invitations far and wide to all the people and the animals in the area to come for a great feast. One and all, the creatures laughed at this pitiful attempt to copy the king. Everyone knew that tortoise was very poor, so there was no fucking way he could pull off a magnificent event like this. That didn’t mean they weren’t going to show up however. Other than the king (who knew about the drum), they all expected tortoise to make a spectacular ass of himself. This was a must-see event.
They were all therefore shocked to see the lavish spread laid out for them when they arrived. This wasn’t the entertainment they had expected, but an incredible feast was almost as good as a humiliating show and so everyone sat down and enjoyed their meal. When the event ended, the guests told all of their friends and neighbors how incredibly tortoise had fared as a host. The people who had not gone the first time (not caring to travel a long way just to be disappointed) were devastated about having missed out when they learned this. Everyone agreed that they had never had better food, and a spectacular banquet at someone else’s expense wasn’t something that happened every day.
Overnight, the tortoise was widely regarded as a very rich and very generous creature. He gained great honor and respect as a result of his event (since none but the king knew that tortoise hadn’t had to work to provide a single morsel of it). They didn’t understand how he had become so rich so suddenly, but that didn’t really matter – what did matter was making sure they went to the next banquet that tortoise threw. No one who had skipped the first opportunity was going to miss the next one.
After having the magic drum for a few weeks, tortoise began to grow lazy. Well, lazier anyway. He did no work at all, opting instead to travel around the countryside boasting of his newfound riches. He also took to the sudden bounty of palm wine, which had always been too expensive to indulge in before. And by ‘took to’, I mean he became a roaring drunk. On one of his jaunts to spread the news of his wealth at a distant farm, tortoise had spent the entire day drinking as much as he possibly could. When the time came for him to head home, he could barely stagger down the road and hold on to his drum at the same time. In his drunken haze, tortoise barely saw the stick in the road and it wouldn’t have meant anything to him if he had. Keeping his balance by the skin of his teeth (not that he actually had teeth, but you know what I mean), he stepped gingerly over the obstacle and continued home. He didn’t notice that anything had changed, but it had. The spell was broken.
Bad things didn’t start up immediately (it takes time for this sort of thing to build), so he made it home with the careless luck of barflies everywhere. He was exhausted and close to passing out when he finally made it home that night. Tossing the drum into a corner rather carelessly for such a powerful artifact, he collapsed into bed and passed the fuck out. The morning sun woke him the next day, far too bright for the hangover beating in his skull. He was utterly ravenous in the way you only can be after a night of heavy drinking and his wife and kids were also demanding another lavish breakfast in voices that were far, far too loud for his aching head.
Tortoise took up the drum he’d cast aside the night before and began to beat it as he always had. For a moment, nothing happened. An instant later, he wished like hell that nothing had continued to happen. Instead of the usual rich food appearing, 300 Egbo warriors suddenly streamed into the house and began to beat the tortoise, his wife, and his children. Violently. Being tortoises, they were able to find some protection in their shells but that was small comfort. They were all bloody and bruised by the time the Egbo men had returned back to the ether from which they had come (thanks to the tortoise managing to bang the right rhythm on the magic drum in a desperation move).
Once everyone was sure that the violence was over, they emerged from their shells scared, in pain, and angry. Tortoise didn’t really know what had caused the change, but he had a sneaking suspicion that the drum was to blame. He wanted to test it out and see if the magic had changed, but he didn’t want to be the only victim if it did. Hell, hadn’t he been extremely generous with his ill-gotten wealth that had appeared with almost no effort on his part in an attempt to show off? Yeah, that doesn’t actually sound that altruistic and it’s not going to get better. If the Egbo were going to show up and beat everyone next time, tortoise wanted to make damn sure that everyone shared the pain. Literally. If he was going to suffer, he wanted to take as many people down with him as he could. Tortoise is an asshole. He therefore sent out invitations to all and sundry for a huge dinner the next day beginning promptly at three o’clock.
When the appointed time came, a huge crowd had assembled. By now, everyone had heard about the incredible array of tasty treats the last time, and no one wanted to miss out. Everyone, even those sick enough to barely drag themselves out of bed had found a way to get here (mostly with the help of their friends, who didn’t want their loved ones to miss out). Seriously – everyone who lived close enough to have received an invitation were there with one notable exception: King Efriam Duke and his family. They had begged off with a thin excuse, but no one paid much attention to the absence. Kings had plenty of feasts (especially this king), so it wasn’t surprising that he wasn’t as excited about this feast.
Tortoise (who had also sent away his wife and children because he wasn’t a total shithead) began to beat his drum as usual. Much to everyone’s surprise (except tortoise, who had expected this), 300 Egbo men came streaming out of the forest armed with whips and clubs. The doors had been locked by tortoise (who may not be a total shithead, but comes pretty close), so the guests couldn’t escape the vicious beating. Cruel whips cracked through the air above a chorus of screams for the next two solid hours. By the time it was over, many of the guests had to be carried home, bloody and weeping, by their friends who were only slightly less broken. The leopard was the only one to escape (fitting, since the word Egbo is derived from the word for leopard) as he had spotted the warriors heading for the gathering and had figured that things were about to get ugly. With a powerful spring, he had leapt out of the house before it was locked up and the bloodshed had begun.
When tortoise was satisfied that his guests had been punished enough for…accepting his hospitality I guess?, tortoise crept to the door and opened it. Finally able to get the fuck out of this ambush, the people fled in terror. Tortoise gave another tap on the drum, and the Egbo men disappeared. The abused populace was understandably furious with tortoise for his cruel treachery and began to howl for him to be punished. It got so bad that he eventually decided that the drum was more trouble than it was worth. He figured that maybe he could still make some kind of profit out of this awful experience.
The next day, tortoise went back to see the king. He told Efriam Duke that he was not satisfied with the drum and wanted to make a return. He was willing to be reasonable about it, and only demanded the drum’s equal value in exchange. You know, a few farms, a bunch of slaves, or their equivalent in spun cloth. Again, tortoise is an asshole. The king, however, refused to bite. Tortoise had forced him into this whole mess in the first place and this was therefore all his fault. Efriam was a compassionate man and he felt more than a little sorry for the pitiful, bruised tortoise. The reptile had been a dick about it, but he’d had a legitimate need for help feeding his family. “I’ll make you a deal, tortoise. Give me back the drum, and I’ll give you a magical fufu tree that can keep you and your family fed, so long as you take care of it properly.”
Tortoise was disappointed that he hadn’t managed to wrangle a better offer, but the fufu tree was far better than keeping the cursed drum. He readily agreed to the deal. The king explained that the fufu tree would only bear fruit once a year, but it would drop fufu and soup each and every day. It might not be the most varied diet, but it would be a plentiful, sustainable one. The condition that had to be met to ensure this was that the tree’s owner could only go to the tree once a day to gather food. Tortoise thanked the king for his benevolence and then headed home to tell his wife what had transpired. Grateful not to have to be under constant threat of Egbo warriors showing up to beat them all, she gathered up her calabashes and went to the tree to gather the day’s allotment of fufu and soup.
Laden with plenty of nutritious food, the couple went home relatively happy with how this had all turned out. They laid out a much plainer but still ample feast for the whole family. The tortoise couple might be happy, but one of their sons had taken after his father a bit too much. He was jealous and greedy, just like his papa, and he couldn’t stop wondering just where the hell his poor dad kept getting all this food. The question gnawed at him all night and so, in the morning, he went and asked his dad exactly that. Tortoise refused to tell his son his new secret. He and his wife had discussed the matter and decided (thanks to the wife’s keen insight) that they shouldn’t tell the kids where the food was coming from. They could only go to the tree once a day (the king had been very specific about the magical parameters here), and it would just be a matter of time before one of them got hungry in the middle of the day and broke the rules for a snack.
The son (who really was a chip of the shitty, shitty block) was determined to get to the bottom of this secret. The only way to do this was to follow his father from hiding. Which turned out to be more challenging than he’d originally thought. Tortoise was a suspicious bastard and he always went out to the tree alone, taking great care to make sure that no one saw where he was going. The son was determined and eventually, he hit on a cunning idea. He sought out a calabash with a long neck and a hole in one end. He hollowed it out and filled it with ashes carried from the family fire. Then, he stole the bag that his father always carried with him on his treks to the magic tree, full of the calabashes he used to bring back the food. He made a small hole in said tote bag and then snuck the calabash inside with the neck down. That way, when his father took the bag to get the food, he would leave a faint trail of ashes behind him to lead the way.
The next day, father tortoise went out on his daily trip to the tree and unbeknownst to him, he left a trail of ash behind him as he went. Once he was out of sight, the greedy son followed behind him. He was very careful to hang back far enough that his father didn’t see him but not so far back that the wind blew away the trail he was following. Hiding in the bushes, he watched from a safe distance as his father reached the fufu tree and filled the calabashes inside and then set out for home. The son waited until he was out of sight and then set out for home as well. He sat down with the family and had the usual meal of soup and fufu and then went to bed.
The next morning, the greedy son waited until his father had left and then gathered up his brothers. He told them all that their father was holding out on them and offered to show them where he got his bountiful food. The others weren’t as greedy as the first son, but they were still plenty greedy and they were super down for a raid on their father’s secret stash. They set out and, sure enough, found the tree laden with plenty of soup and fufu just as the son had promised. They gorged themselves on everything they found and thus broke the spell.
The next day, tortoise again made his daily trip to the tree…only, he couldn’t find it anymore. He was sure he’d gone the right way, but there was nothing but empty brush where the tree should have been. Thick briars and a dense mass of prickly palms had grown up all around where the fufu tree should be. The magic was gone. Tortoise was sure of it, and he was equally sure he hadn’t done anything wrong this time. He’d followed the king’s directions to the letter.
He returned home empty handed and heavy hearted to tell his wife the terrible news. They’d only had this fantastic gift for a short time before it had gone away. They called the whole family together to tell them everything and ask if anyone knew what had happened. Who had done this wicked thing? Naturally, everyone denied the shit out of it. Sick of their lies (he wasn’t sure who exactly was lying, but at least one of those little brats was definitely lying), he took them to see the place where the magical tree had been and again asked them to fess up. Again, no one did. “Alright, fine. It doesn’t matter anyway. I tried everything I could, but I’m out of magic tricks. Since the fufu tree is gone, you’re going to have to live off the prickly palm tree instead.” Thus, they all moved into their new home beneath the prickly palm tree, which is why, to this day, you always find tortoises living beneath these poky trees – they have nowhere else to go for food.
Tortoise has been hoisted by his own petard both for being a total asshat and for raising his boys to likewise be total asshats. With the magic drum returned to its proper royal home, it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s suckers are the elephant and the earthworm.
Once, when Ambo was king of Calabar instead of our good friend Efriam Duke, the elephant was not only a massive beasty but he had eyes that were every bit as big as he was. As mentioned earlier, animals and people lived in relative harmony back in the olden days and hung out together all the time. Like his fellow king, Ambo liked to throw feasts for the assembled creatures at regular intervals. Elephant was a champion eater, devouring more food than any other guest (though the hippo, who was indeed hungry hungry, tried his best to keep up). Tortoise (probably not the same tortoise but this one is every bit as ornery and dickish as the one in the main story) didn’t care for how much elephant ate at these feasts. After some clever scheming, he came up with a plot to give elephant some comeuppance instead of way, way too much of the food that was supposed to be for everybody.
Tortoise gathered up a bagful of dried kernels and shrimps because, like Eleanor Shellstrop from The Good Place, elephant loved him some shrimps. Taking up his bag, tortoise went to go visit elephant for a little afternoon rap sesh. Elephant happily greeted the visiting tortoise and offered him a seat. Tortoise settled himself and, one eye shut tight, took out his bag of goodies and began to munch happily and with much loud relish. Elephant (who much like me was always hungry) couldn’t help but notice the delighted snacking going on in front of him. “Um, whatcha go there? Looks tasty.”
“Oh, it is, it is. It’s the best food I’ve ever had. It better be, since it cost me one of my eyes.” Tortoise looked up, eye shut tight, to “prove” that he was indeed missing an eye. Elephant was kind of a lummox and bought the obvious lie, hook, line, and sinker. “It’s really that good? Hmm. Well, if it costs an eye to have I guess it costs an eye. Alright, take one of mine.” Tortoise, who had counted on the elephant’s insatiable appetite, had come prepared. He produced a very sharp knife from his bag and held it up. “You’re pretty tall, big guy and I’m pretty short. I can’t exactly reach your eye.” Elephant, gullible to the last, picked up tortoise with his trunk and lifted him and his sharp knife up to his enormous eye. With one quick slice, tortoise scooped out the elephant’s right eye making a bloody, gruesome mess.
Elephant quite reasonably trumpeted in the red pain of his butchered eye, but he quickly forgot his agony when tortoise held up his bag of kernels and shrimpies. The food was every bit as delicious as tortoise had promised and he quickly forgot his pain. He didn’t need to lose an eye for this little snack, but at least the snack was real and actually tasty. When the bag was empty, elephant rooted around for crumbs, still hungry as ever. “That was amazing. I don’t suppose you have more?” Tortoise, who hadn’t expected his trick to go quite this well, lied out his ass. “I sure do, buddy, but you know the price. You still have one eye, right?”
Elephant wasn’t sure if he was ready to lose his other eye, but his tummy was rumbling and shrimps were whispering in his giant ears and he decided to go for it. “Okay – do it. For the shrimps.” Again, he lifted tortoise and his cruel knife up to his eye. In a second quick, bloody motion, out came elephant’s second eye. As elephant was trumpeting in fresh pain, tortoise slid down the elephant’s trunk to the ground and, moving as quietly as he could, hid himself in the brush.
Elephant might not have eyes anymore, but he quickly saw that he had been brutally tricked. He called out to tortoise for help (and his promised shrimpy snacks) but only silence greeted him. He got louder and louder, calling out for tortoise, but still no answer. Angry and scared, he began to rampage pulling down all of the trees he could reach and causing as much destruction as he could, but tortoise silently snuck away. Elephant called out, begging tortoise for help, but there was of course no answer. The sun set on poor abandoned elephant.
The rest of the evening and the following night passed in a haze of agony, fear, and disorientation for elephant. The next morning (he had no idea how long had passed), elephant asked the people he heard passing by what time it was. Antelope happened to be the closest and called out that it was morning and that he, along with everyone else, was headed to market for yams and fresh leaves for breakfast. That was the moment that it dawned on elephant (somewhat literally) that tortoise had betrayed him. No more snacks were going to be forthcoming and now that the shrimpies were gone, he was deeply regretting his impulsive decision to sacrifice both eyes for fleeting pleasure.
Elephant began to ask everyone that he heard wandering by if he could borrow a pair of eyes since he no longer had his own. Completely understandably, everyone flatly refused to take a knife to their own faces to give elephant their eyes. He was a nice enough guy, but not ‘give up your vision forever’ nice. After much time and many refusals, earthworm happened by. Being extremely tiny, he lived in fear and awe of the massive elephant and greeted the huge beasty very humbly. Pretty much no one gave worm the time of day so he was shocked that the elephant (who he considered to be the king of the jungle, lion be damned) returned his greeting warmly. He felt more than a little flattered that such a powerful creature had deigned to be polite to his lowly self.
“Here’s the deal, my dear friend worm. I seem to have misplaced my eyes, which is making things a bit difficult at the moment. I really need to head down to the market and get some things in order, but I swear that I’ll have them back to you by next market day. What do you say old chum old buddy old pal?” Earthworm wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to give up his eyes, even temporarily, but he was deeply flattered that elephant had asked him of all creatures (not knowing that elephant was asking literally everyone). Not wanting to sour this brand-new friendship, he agreed to lend elephant his eyes, just temporary like you understand.
Worm plucked his own very tiny eyes out of his head (which looked even tinier compared to elephant’s huge skull). Picking them up delicately with his very dextrous trunk, elephant placed the small worm eye’s in his head. The flesh immediately writhed and closed up around them tightly. Elephant did try to remove them again a week or so later, but they were now stuck fast and not coming out without a lot more trauma. Elephant might feel a little bad about reneging on his promise to worm, but he wasn’t about to take a knife to his face to cut out his own eyes a second time. Once was bad enough. For his part, worm waited until the next market day to ask for his eyes back but, despite his huge flappy ears, elephant pretended not to hear the tiny, non-threatening worm. He made it clear that this was an act however by proclaiming to no one at all: “I sure hope there aren’t any worms crawling in the dirt beneath me. They are so very tiny that I can’t see them with my weak eyes and I would hate to step on them and crush them to a bloody, gruesome mess.” Thus did the poor gullible earthworm end up eyeless forever after and only slightly less-gullible elephant ended up with very, very small eyes way out of proportion to their massive bulk.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on Stitcher, on TuneIn, on Vurbl, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth and on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff.

Next time, it’s not exactly a rom com but it is the annual Valentine’s special. You’ll discover you don’t need a law degree to be a lawyer, that being rich doesn’t make you a businessman, and that it’s better to be lucky than good. Then, in Gods and Monsters, you’ll see that having a devilishly handsome husband isn’t always a good thing. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.