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Jamaica Anansi stories

Chapter 351: 88. The Two Bulls. [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]

88. The Two Bulls. [Story]

See Jekyll’s version, 114–116, called “Timmolimmo,” a name which is also given to the bull of number 89 in some versions. In Theal, 56–66, a mysterious and beautiful woman who goes to the river only at night is named “Tangalimlibo.” Her enemies persuade her to go out by day and she is taken by the river, returns to suckle her child, and is at last ransomed by sacrificing an ox which seems to bear the same name as the woman.

In this challenge story, the bull has killed, not the mother, as in number 89, but her sons, and has unwittingly fathered his successful antagonist, who has been brought up in secret. The father’s secret name is evidently learned from the mother.

For the tossing trick, see number 69.