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Folktales

The Land Where No Vultures Fly

Two vultures in the east heard of the fertile lands which are Liberia today, and decided they would come and settle here. They flew west and west and further west, over rivers and mountains and plains, and in time they arrived at a town in this country.

They sat in a tree at the edge of the town, craning their naked necks to see what manner of people lived below, and how such food they had.

The well-built housed and handsome fields suggested prosperity, and when they say a woman throw a dead chicken from her window they thought it must be a prosperous place indeed. They knew that people in other lands could never afford to waste food in that way.

But as they watched a man passed by, and seeing the chicken there he picked it up and put it in his bag; and this, to the two vultures, was an evil omen.

“This would be a bad place for us to live,” said the second bird. “People are too thrifty to waste scraps.”

The two vultures passed on further west. Such birds infest the lands on every side, but have never settled on Liberian soil.