MANY years ago a book on the Folk-Tales of the Eskimo was published, and the editor of The Academy (Dr. Appleton) told one of his minions to send it to me for revision. By mischance it was sent to an eminent expert in Political Economy, who, never suspecting any error, took the book for the text of an interesting essay on the economics of "the blameless Hyperboreans." Mr. Dayrell's "Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria" appeal to the anthropologist within me, no less than to the lover of what children and older people call "Fairy Tales." The stories are full of mentions of strange institutions, as well as of rare adventures. I may be permitted to offer some running notes and comments on this mass of African curiosities from the crowded lumber-room of the native mind. I. The Tortoise with a Pretty Daughter.--The story, like the tales of the dark native tribes of Australia, rises from that state of fancy by which man draws (at least for purposes of fiction) no line between himself and the lower animals. Why should not the fair heroine, Adet, daughter of the tortoise, be the daughter of human parents? The tale would be none the less interesting, and a good deal more credible to the mature intelligence. But the ancient fashion of animal parentage is presented. It may have originated, like the stories of the Australians, at a time when men were totemists, when every person had a bestial or vegetable "family-name," and when, to account for these hereditary names, stories of descent from a supernatural, bestial, primeval race were invented. In the fables of the world, speaking animals, human in all but outward aspect, are the characters. The fashion is universal among savages; it descends to the Buddha's jataka, or parables, to sop and La Fontaine. There could be no such fashion if fables had originated among civilised human beings. The polity of the people who tell this story seems to be despotic. The king makes a law that any girl prettier than the prince's fifty wives shall be put to death, with her parents. Who is to be the Paris, and give the fatal apple to the most fair? Obviously the prince is the Paris. He falls in love with Miss Tortoise, guided to her as he is by the bird who is "entranced with her beauty." In this tribe, as in Homer's time, the lover offers a bride-price to the father of the girl. In Homer cattle are the current medium; in Nigeria pieces of cloth and brass rods are (or were) the currency. Observe the queen's interest in an affair of true love. Though she knows that her son's life is endangered by his honourable passion, she adds to the bride-price out of her privy purse. It is "a long courting"; four years pass, while pretty Adet is "ower young to marry yet." The king is very angry when the news of this breach of the royal marriage Act first comes to his ears. He summons the whole of his subjects, his throne, a stone, is set out in the market-place, and Adet is brought before him. He sees and is conquered.

The book “Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria, West Africa” is a Folk tales written by Elphinstone Dayrell. Elphinstone Dayrell, a British colonial administrator, collected and preserved conventional folks tales from Southern Nigeria. "Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria, West Africa" is a complicated web of oral traditions that captures the spirit of Nigerian tradition. The paintings of literature contain a huge range of folks stories, myths, and legends handed down over ages in Nigeria.Dayrell's paintings are an exquisite useful resource for gaining knowledge of approximately Southern Nigeria's oral literature and cultural records.These human beings's recollections mirror the attitudes, behaviors, and values of numerous Nigerian groups. The testimonies have appealing characters consisting of foxy animals, supernatural beings, and courageous men. Morality, bravery, consciousness, and deception are key topics in these tales, which educate listeners and readers vital instructions. Dayrell efficaciously portrays Southern Nigeria's numerous landscapes and traditions. The work of literature preserves actual folklore, so assisting to preserve Nigeria's cultural historical history for future generations. Each narrative offers insight into the Nigerian humans's ideas and creativity, as well as their many cultural affects.

Sun and Moon must leave their earthly home after Sun invites the Sea to visit.

Winner • NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work (Fiction) Winner • Anne Izard Storytellers’ Choice Award Holiday Gift Guide Selection • Indiewire, San Francisco Chronicle, and Minneapolis Star-Tribune These nearly 150 African American folktales animate our past and reclaim a lost cultural legacy to redefine American literature. Drawing from the great folklorists of the past while expanding African American lore with dozens of tales rarely seen before, The Annotated African American Folktales revolutionizes the canon like no other volume. Following in the tradition of such classics as Arthur Huff Fauset’s “Negro Folk Tales from the South” (1927), Zora Neale Hurston’s Mules and Men (1935), and Virginia Hamilton’s The People Could Fly (1985), acclaimed scholars Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Maria Tatar assemble a groundbreaking collection of folktales, myths, and legends that revitalizes a vibrant African American past to produce the most comprehensive and ambitious collection of African American folktales ever published in American literary history. Arguing for the value of these deceptively simple stories as part of a sophisticated, complex, and heterogeneous cultural heritage, Gates and Tatar show how these remarkable stories deserve a place alongside the classic works of African American literature, and American literature more broadly. Opening with two introductory essays and twenty seminal African tales as historical background, Gates and Tatar present nearly 150 African American stories, among them familiar Brer Rabbit classics, but also stories like “The Talking Skull” and “Witches Who Ride,” as well as out-of-print tales from the 1890s’ Southern Workman. Beginning with the figure of Anansi, the African trickster, master of improvisation—a spider who plots and weaves in scandalous ways—The Annotated African American Folktales then goes on to draw Caribbean and Creole tales into the orbit of the folkloric canon. It retrieves stories not seen since the Harlem Renaissance and brings back archival tales of “Negro folklore” that Booker T. Washington proclaimed had emanated from a “grapevine” that existed even before the American Revolution, stories brought over by slaves who had survived the Middle Passage. Furthermore, Gates and Tatar’s volume not only defines a new canon but reveals how these folktales were hijacked and misappropriated in previous incarnations, egregiously by Joel Chandler Harris, a Southern newspaperman, as well as by Walt Disney, who cannibalized and capitalized on Harris’s volumes by creating cartoon characters drawn from this African American lore. Presenting these tales with illuminating annotations and hundreds of revelatory illustrations, The Annotated African American Folktales reminds us that stories not only move, entertain, and instruct but, more fundamentally, inspire and keep hope alive. The Annotated African American Folktales includes: Introductory essays, nearly 150 African American stories, and 20 seminal African tales as historical background The familiar Brer Rabbit classics, as well as news-making vernacular tales from the 1890s’ Southern Workman An entire section of Caribbean and Latin American folktales that finally become incorporated into the canon Approximately 200 full-color, museum-quality images

Long before people could turn to books for instruction and amusement, they relied upon storytellers for answers to their questions about life. Africa boasts a particularly rich oral tradition, in which the griot — village historian — preserved and passed along cultural beliefs and experiences from one generation to the next. This collection of 30 timeless fables comes from the storytellers of Nigeria, whose memorable narratives tell of promises kept and broken, virtue rewarded, and treachery punished. Ajapa the Tortoise — a trickster, or animal with human qualities — makes frequent appearances among the colorful cast of talking animals. In "Tortoise Goes Wooing," he learns a valuable lesson in friendship and sharing. Ajapa's further adventures describe how, among other things, he became a chief, acquired all of the world's wisdom, saved the king, tricked the lion, and came to be bald. Recounted in simple but evocative language, these ancient tales continue to enchant readers and listeners of all ages.