Reading Notes, Nigerian Folk Tales, Part B: The Lightning and the Thunder

Photo of lightning by John Fowler

(Source: Wikipedia Commons)

The Story of the Lightning and the Thunder

There was a point in time in which thunder and lightning lived on earth, living amongst the people, but the king only allowed them to live at the edge of the town in a very isolated place. The thunder was an old sheep that was the mother to her son lightening, which was a ram. The ram was very rambunctious and he was always causing a lot of destruction. He would break down the walls of houses, knock down trees, and he has even gotten so violent that his actions have caused so much damage that people have died. The ram's mother would always tell him to stop but he never listened to her. There was no way for his wild temper to be tamed.

This is why the king made them live at the end of the town. Nobody ever wanted to be around them.
People kept complaining to the king about the ram even after making the ram and his mother move so he had no choice but to take more drastic measures. The king ordered them to leave the town and live in the woods, but this didn't make a difference in the lives of the townspeople because the ram's temper could caused him to burn down the forest and the fire spread back to the town, burning down the homes and farms of the people that lived there. They complained about this to the king and the king had to resort to the ultimate measure of banishing the ram and his mother from the earth to live  in exile in the sky as thunder and lightning. Ever since, when the lightning gets angry, he creates damage on earth, and right after, you will hear this mother, the thunder, yelling at him to stop. Sometimes, you will see the lightning but you will not hear his mother because she knows that no matter what she says, he will continue to be a force of unstoppable destruction.
Story source: Folk Stories From Southern Nigeria by Elphinstone Dayrell (1910).