This story suggests that one of the roles of folklore within this culture is: ( sat preparation)

Question

The Story of the Lightning and the Thunder

Nigerian Folktale, translated by Elphinstone Dayrell [1910]

In the olden days the thunder and lightning lived on the earth amongst all the other people, but the king made them live at the far end of the town, as far as possible from other people's houses.

 

The thunder was an old mother sheep, and the lightning was her son, a ram. Whenever the ram got angry he used to go about and burn houses and knock down trees; he even did damage on the farms, and sometimes killed people. Whenever the lightning did these things, his mother used to call out to him in a very loud voice to stop and not to do any more damage; but the lightning did not care in the least for what his mother said, and when he was in a bad temper used to do a very large amount of damage. At last the people could not stand it any longer, and complained to the king.

 

So the king made a special order that the sheep (Thunder) and her son, the ram (Lightning), should leave the town and live in the far bush. This did not do much good, as when the ram got angry he still burnt the forest, and the flames sometimes spread to the farms and consumed them.

 

So the people complained again, and the king banished both the lightning and the thunder from the earth and made them live in the sky, where they could not cause so much destruction. Ever since, when the lightning is angry, he commits damage as before, but you can hear his mother, the thunder, rebuking him and telling him to stop. Sometimes, however, when the mother has gone away some distance from her naughty son, you can still see that he is angry and is doing damage, but his mother's voice cannot be heard.

 

This story suggests that one of the roles of folklore within this culture is:

a. To inspire fear of the supernatural within the people

b. To explain occurrences within nature and climate

c. To persuade the people to respect their leader

d. To strengthen the bond between parents and their children

Answer 1

The passage seems to be explaining natural phenonmenon using folklore (answer B). The story gives a explaination as to the reason why lightning is heard before thunder and also why lightning can be seen far away (heat lightning I believe or lightning so far away or in the atmosphere that there is no associated thunder) but not accompanied by thunder. A doesn't make sense as the people "complain" about the thunder/lightning issue with no language in the story relating to fear. D seems reasonable as the son disregards his mother's instructions but the story seems to indicate his temper causes the damage more than ignoring his mother's instructions. C also doesn't make sense as the people aren't being 'persuaded' to respect their leader by any agent in the story - they bring him their grievances and the king does his best tries to solve the problem. The fact that the problem can't be solved (lightning still "does damage") is not a source of complaint for the people anymore by the end of the story. Definitely a tough question.