Hello, Hi, everybody happy new month of October 2021. It's good to be here contesting with others and telling us about my favorite childhood story. Thank you @ngoenyi for making this nostalgic and memory quickening contest available.

STARTING POINT.

My childhood was very memorable and enjoyable. I grew up in a large family, both the many children and parents were happy, making out time to play, talk and tell folk stories mostly at night when everyone would have eaten their night meals and are resting before bed time.
We will all sit-down expecting to listen to one or more stories from my father, he loved telling us those stories. After off loading the story, he will now ask questions to know who really listened or who got some lessons from his story.

MY FAVORITE WAS THE TORTOISE AND OTHER ANIMALS IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.

My father told me and my siblings many
stories, he was a civil servant, he comes back home from work quite on time. He had time to always tell us stories either fiction or nonfiction.

As you know that fictional stories are those stories created from imagination while nonfiction are those informative or factual stories. When ever he finished telling us his stories I will sit back on my own and will be imagining the reality of the story my imagination will be going here and there, thinking about the story. The most memorable one is this very story about the bravity of the tortoise and his friends in the animal kingdom.

This story created lots of emotions within me, because I believed it was a true story because it was told by my father, until when I grew up to realize it was just a fictional story from the traditional beliefs and back ground.

He was always telling us the story of tortoise and his bravery behavior, how he manipulated all the strong, fast and fat animals in the animals kingdom to keep his own mother alive, while others are killing and ate up their mothers with friends because of the famain or the deversitated hunger in their kingdom.

FAMAINE IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.

The story goes like this, "there was famain or a great hunger in the animal kingdom in a far away country where the animals lived. Toirtose who is known for his bravery quietly hid his mother on top of a lofty fat tree, and will everyday go out to get food for himself and and his mother. The toirtose decided to tie a very long and strong rope from the top of the tree where he kept his mother to the ground and still hid the rope around the tree so that nobody could notice the rope was tied for some purposes. And what was his purpose; he climbs through the rope to see his mother and drop some food stuff for her to eat when ever he noticed that no animal in their kingdom is a available to know what him and his mother were doing.

During the day time, tortoise will come there, he will peep left and right not seeing any animal around, he will sing a song, " mother throw down rope, throw down rope, big animal killed it's mother, throw down rope, small animal killed it's mother throw down rope,myself has hidden my mother, throw down rope, rope,rope, throw down rope.

Immediately the mother heard that song and his voice she will throw down the rope, this very tortoise will climb through the rope give the mother food, they will interact and he will go down and off into the bush again to look for food for another day.

You know all the other animals do not have mothers again, they all have eaten their mothers as food because of the hunger in the land and this bravery tortoise followed them eat their mothers but he went and hid his own mother.

He has a special sound and tune he uses to sing the song and his mother knows it, at his mother's hearing of that particular sound and tune, she brings down the linking rope for her tortoise son to climb up to meet her at the top.

But one day, he never knew that the elephant was hiding closely watching what he tortoise does that had made him look good and happy. He came again started singing his normal song the elephant learnt the song and it's tune nodded his head, and kept quiet. Immediately tortoise left the environment, the elephant used his tusk pull down the tree ate and swallowed toirtose's mother as food and as meat yet pretending as nothing has happened went on his way far away.

At the evening time, the tortoise brought food for his mother from far away, with joy he was coming but got to their house tree saw the lofty tree on the ground but saw no animal, started crying calling his mother's name, mother, mother, mother, no answer and he didn't see his mother again he cried, cried and cried no answer, the elephant has already eaten it's mother and behaved as nothing happened. This is the end of this folk lore and traditional immaginary storyline.

WHAT ARE THE LESSONS YOU LEARNED FROM THE STORY.

*I learnt that one has to be straight forward in dealing with other people, tortoise was never straight forward but he decided to follow other animals to feast on their own mothers but hid his own mother, never you betray people's trust in you.

*Always love and care for, and about those around you or your family members, the tortoise showed extra love to it's mother.

*The tortoise was smart enough to know how to make everytime count, even in adversity.
Teaching me to maximize my time to achieve success at all times no excuses, goodness Wil respond at most times.

*The toirtose kept himself busy going extra miles to bring food for his aged mother, he never had time to loiter around with the lazy animals in the kingdom. Making me to know that hard work and continuty pays the most.

*This character of the tortoise has taught me never to say never in every situation of life rather taking time to plan, strategize and lunch out into the deeper or deepest oceans of lives issues to achieve success at the end.

HOW DID YOU LEARN THE STORY OR WHO TOLD YOU THE STORY.

My own father told me and my siblings this story and many other more stories. Always at night after every one of us has eaten our night meals and about to go to bed, he will start and we all will take our seats around him and we will be listening attentively because after telling us the stories, he will be pointing at whoever he wants and ask you what you have learnt from the story.
Though there are many other stories my maternal grandmother also told me but that of my father stock in my mind till when I grew up to know it was just imaginary stories. But I learned much from the story as I have enumerated here.

AT WHAT AGE DID YOU LEARN THE STORY

My age at then was 8 years old till I was 12 years old. In short, those imaginary stories otherwise known as tales by moon light stopped coming to me when I went to stay in the boarding school in my secondary school, because all through my secondary School, I was a boarding student.

CONCLUSION.

It's good to transfer this type of family bond to our children now, it made me very close to my father though dead now. I believed in the stories because they were told by my own father. But I grew up to know those were not reality. I was always expecting one or more stories from him. The stories also developed my emotions and my imaginations because after hearing the stories I will be thinking about almost everything I have heard for quite a long time.

I invite my friends, @chigold @ninapenda @samuel20.

Thank you everybody for reading through my post and appreciating my efforts.
Thank you so much steemkidss community
Thank you @ngoenyi, thanks also @focusnow.