Jamaica Anansi stories

Chapter 300: 36. Horse and Anansi. [Story]

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About This Book

A collection of Jamaican folktales gathers short animal and trickster narratives centered on the spider Anansi alongside tales about tigers, monkeys, goats, and birds. Stories account for curious animal traits, stage comic reversals, and probe themes of cunning, justice, and social order through episodic plots and origin motifs. The volume also presents riddles, dance and song materials, and field-recorded music, arranged in thematic sections that compile variants, brief notes, and folkloric context for each tale.

[Contents]

36. Horse and Anansi. [Story]

For the trick of sending after fire in order to enjoy the whole of a common store compare Koelle, 166–167; Tremearne, 255, 263; Hartt, 34; Harris, Friends, 79–80; Nights, 282–284; Christensen, 89; Georgia, JAFL 32: 403.

For the trick of leaving the knife or the spoon behind, see number 11 in this collection.

For the fire-test see 21a and note to number 9.

It is clear, from the picture drawn of Horse as he starts for the Fire, that the story-teller thinks of the actors in the story as animals, even when he shows them behaving like human beings.