Jamaica Anansi stories

Chapter 363: 101. Bull-of-all-the-land. [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]

101. Bull-of-all-the-land. [Story]

Old Forbes gave me the only version of this story I heard in Jamaica. In Trowbridge, JAFL 9: 284–285, the song and the incident of the three drops of blood occur, but the king is “King Tonga” and there is no beast transformation. The husband is lost [281]by letting a little dog kiss him, as in number 105 and in Parsons, Andros Island, 55, 59, not by his wife’s burning the skin as in this version.

For the song at night as a means of recognition see number 74.

See Grimm 88, The Singing Soaring Lark; Bolte u. Polívka 2: 229–273.