Emiong emerges after dark; bat species, colouring and moonlit setting imagined.
Original narrative illustration; species, colour and detailed setting interpreted, not authenticated natural history or ethnography.
Overview
Emiong is the named bat in Why the Bat flies by Night, the seventh story in Elphinstone Dayrell’s 1910 collection. He and the bush rat Oyot are friends who regularly eat together, but Emiong is jealous of his companion. When Oyot asks why the bat’s soup tastes so good, Emiong claims that he boils himself in the cooking water and that his own sweet flesh flavours it. He offers a demonstration using merely warm water, which he falsely describes as boiling. He jumps in and out unharmed, then serves soup that he has already prepared. The apparent proof depends on concealment and substitution; the story does not actually give him immunity to boiling water.
Oyot goes home intending to reproduce the recipe. He asks his wife to boil water and jumps into the pot while she is not looking, dying before she discovers him. His wife reports what has happened to the king, who orders that Emiong be imprisoned. The bat anticipates trouble and escapes into the bush. Because people search for him all day, he changes his feeding habits and comes out only after dark. This ending offers the tale’s explanation for the bat’s nocturnal life, rather than an observation establishing the behaviour of every real bat. Dayrell also prints a different, unnamed bat in tale XII, whose shame follows a dispute with a tortoise; that narrative is not silently assigned to Emiong.
Origins & earliest records
VII, Why the Bat flies by Night, in Dayrell’s Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria, West Africa. The tale names its animal characters but does not name an individual narrator, village or particular language community.
Records & interpretation
Complete tale VII, pp36–37, read through its escape and final explanation, with full title and Lang introduction and complete separate tale XII.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria, West Africa
VII, Why the Bat flies by Night, pp36–37; complete tale and original collection introduction retained.
Family & connections
A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Historical English collected-folklore textDayrell1910: complete VII and original collection contextResearch access: 2026-10-18
Image credits
AI-generatedEmiong emerges after dark; bat species, colouring and moonlit setting imagined.
Original narrative illustration; species, colour and detailed setting interpreted, not authenticated natural history or ethnography.
