Folktales in Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo's The Last of The Strong Ones, House of Symbols And Children of The Eagle

Abstract

Folktales are among the elements and materials that made up the folklore of any homogeneous society. Others include proverbs, riddles, songs, beliefs, myths, legends, charms, magic incantations, omens, and superstitions among few others. All these made up the folklore of a given society from which we obtain a picture, a way of life and attitude, belief, custom worldview, perception and outlook to life common among the people of the society. These folklore materials are handed over from generation to generation orally, that is through a mouth to mouth transmission. They live with the society and die only when such society is dead and live no more. Folktale is one of the elements of folklore handed over from generation to generation. It appears in the forms of stories told by our fore-fathers, stories believed to have taken place in the remote past, a time best known to the originators of the tales. These tales in the end are used for entertainment, for instruction and for teaching important moral values of society. In the recent time, these tales have found better expression in the written works of African literary artists and have become one of the veritable elements writers borrow to adorn their written literary works and give them a touch of local flavour and beauty. This paper studied the use of folktales as one of the major ingredients of storytelling in Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo's trilogy, The Last of the Strong Ones, House of Symbols and Children of the Eagle. How the author weaved these tales in between narrations, their functions and the obvious reasons they were used is the purpose of this paper.