THE TORTOISE  AND THE SNAIL

Long time ago, the Tortoise and the snail were very good friends. Snail was a very successful farmer but the Tortoise was a layabout but because of their friendship snail allowed his daughter to marry the Tortoise. Very soon after the wedding the Tortoise felt the need to feed his wife and since he doesn't have any reasonable job he taught the best option for him was to steal from snail's farm, soon afterwards snail started to notice that many of his farm produce often went missing. Snail reported this incident to the king several times but the supposed thief was still elusive.


One day the snail taught of what to do in order to catch the thief, so he set a trap for the thief and hide to see who this strage thief was. The tortoise came as usuall to steal from the snail's farm but this time his luck ran out, he was caught by the trap and the snail bound him with rope. The tortoise started to beg snail, reminding him of the fact that he is his in-law but the snail was adamant and determined to make an example of the tortoise.

The snail took the tortoise to the road that lead to the village market and tied him to a tree, he placed beside him all the farm produce that the tortoise has stolen and forced the tortoise to confess. Many of the early morning traders going to the market were raining abuses on tortoise, the tortoise was so ashamed of himself but he accepted the punishment for his crime. However, after all the traders have left for the market, the tortoise pleaded with the snail to release him and at least save him from further abuse that may come his way while the traders are returning back home in the evening. The snail refused to yield to the tortoise pleadings and thought it will be more fun if the traders could rain abuses on tortoise again on their return from the market. However, while many of these traders were returning they were surprised to still meet the tortoise tied up since morning and this time around they believe the punishment was too much so they turn to the snail instead saying "oto to eyi la'na igbin!" which translates: so the snail can treat his in law this way? they started raining abuses on the snail for being too wicked and inconsiderate. The snail was so ashamed of himself, he set the tortoise free then the tortoise said to him "if only you have listened to my pleas earlier you would not have suffered all these backlash".

That's where the proverb came from: Eebu alo ni ta'hun ta'bo ni ta'na e which tranlates: the earlier abuse was for the tortoise but the later was for his in-law (the snail). The story teaches us to forgive whoever wronged us but apologise for their wrong doings