Explore all content
Why the Cat kills Rats
Public-domain English source text from Elphinstone Dayrell’s 1910 collection. This colonial-era retelling is preserved as a historical source, not presented as a contemporary or exhaustive account of Nigerian culture.
Why the Flies Bother the Cows
Public-domain English source text from Elphinstone Dayrell’s 1910 collection. This colonial-era retelling is preserved as a historical source, not presented as a contemporary or exhaustive account of Nigerian culture.
Why the Moon Waxes and Wanes
Public-domain English source text from Elphinstone Dayrell’s 1910 collection. This colonial-era retelling is preserved as a historical source, not presented as a contemporary or exhaustive account of Nigerian culture.
Why the Sun and the Moon live in the Sky
Public-domain English source text from Elphinstone Dayrell’s 1910 collection. This colonial-era retelling is preserved as a historical source, not presented as a contemporary or exhaustive account of Nigerian culture.
Why the Worms live Underneath the Ground
Public-domain English source text from Elphinstone Dayrell’s 1910 collection. This colonial-era retelling is preserved as a historical source, not presented as a contemporary or exhaustive account of Nigerian culture.
Wilful waste makes woeful want.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
Wilful will do it.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
Winter's thunder and summer's flood
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
Wit once bought is worth twice taught.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
Ye live beside ill neebours.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
Ye'll no sell your hens on a rainy day;
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
Ye're busy to clear yourself when naebody files you.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
Ye're fleyed [frightened] o' the day ye ne'er saw.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
You cannot play the flute by blowing alone: you must use your fingers.
A maxim in Life and Character in the 1906 edition of T. Bailey Saunders' English translation of Goethe. It is presented as a historically attributed text, not as present-day fact, diagnosis or advice.
You cry out before you are hurt.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
You may go farther and fare worse.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
You may pay too dear for your whistle.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
You must not hang a man by his looks.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
You must spoil before you spin.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
You stout and I stout, who shall carry the dirt out?
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
Your trumpeter is dead.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
From ‘Arcades’
A singer invites the listener to follow him across untrodden green and under star-proof elms to where a rural Queen sits clad in splendour befitting her deity.
Ae Fond Kiss
A lover marks one last kiss and a final parting, says no star of hope is left him, insists that to see her was to love her for ever, and wishes her every joy while judging that never to have met would have spared the heartbreak.
An Epitaph
The epitaph refuses extended praise for a woman who declined courtship in life, sketches her chastity, modesty and daily reckoning with heaven, then concludes that all such praise is too weak and that her being dead says more.