There was once a great scarcity of food. Anansi and his son
went out hunting and luckily his son killed a deer. Anansi left his son there
to guard the deer while he fetched a basket to carry the deer. A dragon
appeared and scared the son off to a nearby cave. The dragon took Anansi and
his son to a castle. The son gathered the other prisoners and devised a plan to
escape. They made a rope ladder to throw up to the gods above. The dragon
returned as they were climbing the ladder. Whenever the dragon got close, the
son threw food down for the dragon to get distracted by. The gods were
impressed and made the son the sun, Anansi the moon, and the fellow survivors
the stars.
A dragon like in the story
by Daicaregos found on wiki
A long time ago, the chief Mauri wanted to have a yam
festival, and invited all the other chiefs. On the morning of, chief Mauri sent
his servants to buy many different things in nearby towns. The tortoise, Mr.
Klo, was sent to get wine at the palm-fields. Mr. Klo was a speedy traveler.
The owner of the wine said the only way to get the wine was to fight for it.
Mr. Klo won after many hours of fighting. He filled his pot with wine and drank
the remaining wine. He got too drunk from the wine which slowed his trip back.
He was late and the gates were closed and locked. He died under the weight of
his load. The pot was pasted to his back by the mud. He was revived but now had
a shell on his back and walked on four legs.
A hunter wandered too far in a forest and heard sweet music.
It was a tortoise with a harp. He returned every day and eventually offered to
take the tortoise home. Word traveled about the tortoise but people would not
believe the story. A bet was made and the hunter brought the tortoise to town
the next day. The tortoise did not sing. The hunter was killed. The tortoise
then spoke and said the hunter deserved to die because he was not content with
just hearing the music, he had to brag.
Bibliography:
West African Folktales by William H. Barker and Cecilia Sinclair, with drawings by Cecilia Sinclair (1917). Link
No comments:
Post a Comment