THE PROUD AMAKA AND THE JESTER BY HENRY OLAGUNDOYE

          Once upon a time in the village of Umunede, there lived a very beautiful girl called Amaka. She was so beautiful that anybody who came across her called her beauty. She also knew that she was so beautiful and therefore became proud. Not too long after, people started coming to ask her hand in marriage. All categories of men, rich, average and  poor were all coming because of her beauty, but she  refused all of them, because she thought she was too beautiful for any of them to marry.  Even because of her,  the king  had to put up a big party in order to  ask her hand in marriage,  but she openly rejected the  king,  which made everybody in the  village to hate her.  But  unknowingly  to everybody, the jester; Obodo, had a  plan.  One day,  Obodo went to the path that led to the farm, dug a pit and hid  a calabash of honey  there  and covered it with  palm fronds. Some  distance to the pit,  Obodo dropped some honey leading to the pit, and hid himself in a nearby  bush. Just as he  thought,  Amaka came along that path and  when she  saw the drops of honey, she  looked closely  at it and tasted it. When she realized that it was honey,  she traced the drops of honey  to the pit, opened the  pit and  discovered  a pot of  honey there. She looked around to see  whether anybody  was watching, and when she realized that nobody was watching she  bent  down and carried it. Immediately, Obodo  ran  out from the bush where he was hiding shouting thief! thief!! thief!!! 

Amaka started  pleading. Obodo refused at first,  but after much pleading,  he then gave her options; either to marry him, or he would report her to the king.  She thought over it for a while, because she knew that thieves are  stoned to death in their community,  and she did not want to die a shameful death. She agreed to marry Obodo and spent  the rest of her life with him.