Storytelling Week 6: Disobedient Daughter's Diary

Dear Diary,

It's time for me to marry, but none of the men in this town are good enough for me. They're lacking in looks or personality, when, let's face it, I'm the most beautiful and smartest woman in all the land. I just don't understand why it's so hard to find someone who is as good as me. I'll be single forever if things don't turn around.

Dear Diary,

I've heard that there's the most handsome man who has traveled from a faraway land just to meet me. I must find him and meet him, since he's all that my friends can talk about. Hopefully he's just as good looking as I am.

Dear Diary,

The man is all I could ever want and more in a future husband. He's smart, charming, and so incredibly handsome. I plan to marry him and return with him to his homeland, but my parents seem to think that we're moving too fast. Don't they understand that they shouldn't mess with true love? They were married within a month!

Dear Diary,

We're married now, and it's time to move back to his home with his mother! My parents are being incredibly stubborn about this whole situation. They reluctantly allowed me to marry him, but now they're saying that I should wait to move back with him. They're just not ready for me to leave. They don't understand that they can no longer control me. I'm a married woman! They're going to have to realize that my husband will take care of me and that I'm going to do what I want.

Dear Diary,

I've made a horrible mistake. I returned back to my husband's home and he was not what I thought he was. As soon as we arrived in his town, his friends came and started taking parts of his body away until he was reduced to a skull. A skull! How am I supposed to be married to something that isn't even fully human. I tried to leave but he demanded that I go back to his mother's house to take care of her. I do love his mother. She's old, but she's so very sweet. I help her out around the house and we have some lovely conversations. I'm glad that I have her here, at least. I don't know what I'd do if I were here all alone.

(The Skull)

Dear Diary,

I haven't written in so long! My life was so hectic. The skull's mother finally felt so sorry for me that she helped me escape. A gentle breeze blew me home and I was able to return to my mother. My parents thought I was dead, so they were incredibly happy to see me. I don't know what I was thinking ever leaving them for someone who I hardly knew! I have definitely learned my lesson. I'm not really sure what happened to my last husband, and I don't really ever want to find out. I'm sure he was angry, but he couldn't have really expected someone as beautiful as me to stay with him forever. It's time for me to find a real husband, a human husband. Hopefully he will be as good looking as me.

Bibliography: This story is based off of "The Disobedient Daughter Who Married A Skull" in the Nigerian Folklore Unit by Elphinstone Dayrell.

Author's Note: I really enjoyed this story, not only because it was interesting, but also because it was kind of interesting how the girl's situation seemed like karma for being so vain and not wanting to listen to her parents. In the original story, the girl is incredibly self-centered and stubborn, and refuses  to marry every man until she hears of an extremely handsome man and ends up meeting him at the market. He's actually a skull who has borrowed body parts from his friends because he wants to be appealing enough that the girl will agree to marry him and return home to the spirit world, and she finds this out after disobeying her parents and marrying him and returning to the faraway land with him. He doesn't let her go back home, and he lives in the spirit world that is full of cannibals, so the girl would have most likely been killed. After helping around the house, she becomes good friends with his mother, who eventually helps her get back home. I thought it would be fun to do a diary from her perspective and explain things in her eyes, since it's all told in third person and you never really hear what the girl is thinking.