Why I Stopped Seeing Folk Tales as Children's Stories

By Ramas Ramas -

I’ve been captivated by stories all my life.

Even as a child, I sensed there was something in folk tales that went beyond bedtime entertainment. While most people eventually move away from them, I kept returning, drawn by a richness I could not fully explain. It felt as if these stories were whispering truths I was not yet ready to grasp.

That feeling grew stronger when I began exploring African folk tales and later stories from other cultures. Again and again, I noticed the same quality. These were not just simple tales with neat morals. They carried echoes of something bigger.

One example that struck me is the African story of the tortoise who wanted to join the birds in the sky. He borrowed feathers from each bird and flew with them, but his pride got the better of him. He claimed the feast in the clouds as his own, and the birds angrily took back their feathers. The tortoise fell, and his shell shattered into pieces.

At first glance it looks like a playful fable, something you might tell a child at bedtime. But it is also a sharp lesson about pride, community, and the danger of forgetting where your strength really comes from. It is psychology and social wisdom wrapped in a tale of feathers and shells.

The more I studied these stories, the more astonished I became. What we often dismiss as children’s tales are in fact sophisticated systems for passing down wisdom and cultural memory. Your grandmother’s stories were not just entertainment. They were carefully crafted vessels of knowledge, disguised as play.

Over the next few weeks, I would like to share more of these insights and stories. My hope is that you will begin to see folk tales in a new light, not as relics of the past but as treasures we still need today.

Did you grow up with a story that stayed with you long after childhood? I would love to hear it.

#FolkTales #Storytelling #CulturalWisdom #TheOwlTales #HumanStories

Read more at: http://ramas-ink-and-insight.blogspot.com 

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