The Woman with Two Skins
What could be called ironically paradoxical about what happens to the king
in this story?
Southern Nigerian Folktale
EYAMBA I. of Calabar was a very powerful king. He fought and
conquered all the surrounding countries, killing all the old men and
women, but the able-bodied men and girls he caught and brought back as
slaves, and they worked on the farms until they died.
A
He builds a separate house for his wife, but he doesn't live
there.
B
He conquers countries, kills the old people, and enslaves the
young.
He marries Adiaha as a political gestures, and then winds up
forgetting who she is.
This king had two hundred wives, but none of them had borne a son to
him. His subjects, seeing that he was becoming an old man, begged him
to marry one of the spider's daughters, as they always had plenty of
children. But when the king saw the spider's daughter he did not like her.
as she was ugly, and the people said it was because her mother had had
so many children at the same time. However, in order to please his
people he married the ugly girl, and placed her among his other wives, but
they all complained because she was so ugly, and said she could not live
with them. The king, therefore, built her a separate house for herself,
where she was given food and drink the same as the other wives. Every
one jeered at her on account of her ugliness; but she was not really ugly,
but beautiful, as she was born with two skins, and at her birth her mother
was made to promise that she should never remove the ugly skin until a
certain time arrived save only during the night, and that she must put it on
again before dawn. Now the king's head wife knew this, and was very
C
D
He is a powerful ruler, but winds up getting manipulated by
both his head wife and "the spider."