How Anansi the Spider Got All the Stories

Long, long ago, when people didn’t know a single tale, all the stories in the world belonged to the Sky God. His name was Nyame, and he kept them in a great ebony chest, high above the clouds. Down on earth the evenings were quiet and sad. People sat by the fire and watched the sparks fly, and they said nothing, because they didn’t know what to tell their children at bedtime.

In those days a little spider called Anansi lived among the tall grass. He was no bigger than a nut, and his legs were as thin as hairs, but his head held more clever ideas than there are stars in the sky.

One evening he sat at the edge of his web and listened to the people sighing in the village.

“It isn’t fair,” Anansi said to his wife, Aso the spider. “Stories should live among people, not doze in a chest.”

“Then go to Nyame and ask him,” Aso said with a smile.

“I will!”

Anansi spun a long, long thread and hooked it onto the wind, and the wind carried it up, up, all the way to the sky. The spider grabbed hold with his legs and began to climb. He climbed all day, and he climbed all night. Clouds floated beneath him, white and fluffy as wool. At last he clambered over the edge of the sky and found himself in Nyame’s golden courtyard.

The Sky God sat on a tall carved stool. Around him stood counsellors and elders in bright striped robes. Someone noticed a tiny spider on the floor, and everyone fell silent in surprise.

“What do you want, little spider?” rumbled Nyame, and his voice was like faraway thunder.

“I’ve come to buy your stories,” said Anansi. “Every last one.”

For a moment all was quiet. Then the whole courtyard burst out laughing. The counsellors laughed, the elders laughed, and Nyame himself laughed so hard that the clouds under the courtyard began to sway.

“Oh, stop, I can’t bear it!” The Sky God wiped away his tears. “Rich chiefs have come to me from far and wide. They brought gold, ivory and woven carpets, and not one of them could pay my price. And you’re so small!”

“Just tell me the price,” Anansi answered calmly.

Nyame stopped laughing and leaned closer.

“Very well. Bring me Onini the python, who swallows a goat in one gulp. Bring me Osebo the leopard, whose teeth are like knives. Bring me the Mmoboro hornets, whose sting burns like fire. And bring me Mmoatia the forest fairy, whom no person has ever seen. Then the stories will be yours.”

“I’ll bring them,” said Anansi with a nod.

And down his thread he climbed again.

At home he sat down beside Aso and scratched his head with two legs at once.

“Well?” asked his wife.

“A python, a leopard, hornets and a fairy,” Anansi sighed. “Let’s start with the python. He’s long and strong, and I’m small. I’ll never beat him by strength.”

Aso thought for a moment and whispered:

“Cut a palm branch and take a vine. And then…”

She told her husband the whole plan, right to the end. Anansi jumped for joy.

The next morning he cut a long, straight palm branch, slung a coil of vine over his shoulder and set off for the stream where Onini lived in the warm mud. While he was still a long way off, Anansi began arguing loudly with himself:

“He’s longer! No, shorter! I say longer! Oh no he isn’t, he’s shorter!”

An enormous head rose up from behind the reeds. The python’s yellow eyes flashed.

“What are you muttering about, spider?”

“Oh, Onini, how lucky that you’re here,” said Anansi with a bow. “My wife and I have had a quarrel. She says you’re longer than this palm branch. I say no, you’re shorter. Which of us is right?”

“Your wife, of course,” the python hissed proudly. “I’m the longest in the whole forest.”

“Well, I don’t know, I really don’t… Now, if you lay down beside it, we’d see straight away.”

“Put down your branch!”

Anansi laid the branch on the grass. The python slid out and stretched himself alongside it, sss-sss-sss, coil after coil.

“Oh, but your tail’s still curled up,” Anansi pointed out. “Straighten it, or it won’t be fair.”

Onini strained and stretched himself out as straight as a string. His head lay at one end of the branch and his tail at the other.

“Hold steady, don’t move, I’m measuring!” Anansi called.

And then, swish, swish, he wound the vine round the python’s head, then his middle, then his tail. He pulled the knots tight, tight, tight.

“You really are long, Onini,” he said. “I’ve never seen anyone so long. The Sky God ought to have a look at you too.”

The python hissed and squirmed, but the branch held him as straight as a ruler, and he couldn’t break free.

So Anansi carried the python to Nyame. The Sky God said nothing. He only raised an eyebrow.

“That’s one,” he said at last. “Three to go.”

This time Anansi worked out a plan all by himself. He took a hoe and went to the path Osebo the leopard walked every night on his way to the watering hole. He dug and dug until he had a deep pit. Then he covered it with branches and leaves so well that you’d never notice it, and went home to bed.

In the night the forest shook:

“Grrr! Thump!”

In the morning Anansi came to the pit and peered down. There, among the broken branches, sat the leopard, covered in leaves, cross and a little bit embarrassed.

“Osebo?” Anansi clapped his legs together. “What are you doing down there?”

“Can’t you see?” the leopard snarled. “I fell in! Help me out!”

“Of course I’ll help. But you’ll eat me the moment you’re out.”

“I won’t, on my word as a leopard!”

“Well, all right.”

Anansi bent a thin young sapling down over the pit, tied a vine to its tip and lowered the vine down.

“Tie it round your tail, Osebo, and I’ll pull you out.”

The leopard tied it on. Anansi let go of the sapling, and whoosh! It sprang straight up. Osebo flew out of the pit and dangled in the air upside down, his paws hanging.

“Hey! What’s all this?!”

“You told me to pull you out, so I pulled you out,” Anansi explained, and he quickly tied up the leopard’s paws. “Don’t be cross. Nothing bad will happen to you. The Sky God just wants to have a look at you.”

Nyame looked at the tied-up leopard, then at the little spider.

“Two,” he said, and the counsellors stopped smiling.

Now for the hornets. Anansi found a big, empty calabash gourd with a narrow neck and filled it with water. He covered his head with a wide banana leaf, like an umbrella. Then he went to the old tree where the Mmoboro nest buzzed and hummed inside a hollow.

He crept up very quietly and, splash, he threw water over the nest. And then, splash, he threw some over himself.

“Rain! It’s pouring!” cried Anansi. “Hornets, save yourselves! Your wings will get soaked!”

The hornets flew out of the nest:

“Bzzz! Where can we hide?”

“In here, in my calabash! It’s dry in here!”

The hornets looked at the spider. There he stood under a leaf, dripping wet. It really was raining! And the whole swarm flew, bzzzzz, into the calabash’s narrow neck.

Anansi quickly plugged the neck with a tuft of dry grass.

“There you go,” he told the calabash, which hummed angrily in his grip. “Now you definitely won’t get wet.”

Nyame stared for a long time at the calabash, which was buzzing furiously.

“Three,” he said quietly. “But you won’t catch Mmoatia the fairy. No one has ever seen her.”

“No one has ever seen her,” Anansi agreed. “But somebody has to be the first.”

As everyone knows, fairies are terribly fond of sweet things. So Anansi carved a doll out of wood. It was small, about the size of a child, with a round little head. He smeared it with gum, the thick, sticky sap of a tree, which was so sticky that his legs kept gluing together. Then he tied a thin vine to the doll’s head.

Next he mashed some sweet yams and mixed them with oil to make a yellow, sweet-smelling mash, and he set a full bowl of it in the doll’s lap. He sat the doll under a tall tree where the forest fairies played in the evenings. Then he hid in the bushes, holding the end of the vine.

Dusk fell. The grass rustled, and out into the clearing came little Mmoatia the fairy. She was light as a feather, with flowers tangled in her long hair. She sniffed the air.

“Oh, what a delicious smell!” squeaked the fairy. “Dolly, may I have a teeny taste?”

Anansi tugged the vine, and the wooden head nodded.

The fairy sat down happily and began to eat. Yum, yum, and the bowl was empty.

“Thank you, dolly!” she said.

The doll said nothing.

“I said thank you! Why don’t you answer?”

The doll said nothing.

“Don’t be so rude!” snapped the fairy, and she smacked the doll with her little hand.

Smack! And her hand stuck.

“Let go this minute, or I’ll smack you again!”

Smack! And her other hand stuck too.

The fairy kicked the doll with one foot, and her foot stuck. She kicked with the other, and that one stuck as well. So there sat Mmoatia, hugging the sticky doll, huffing and puffing in a sulk.

Then Anansi stepped out of the bushes.

“Good evening,” he said politely. “Don’t be afraid. The Sky God himself has invited you to visit.”

When Anansi climbed up to the sky for the fourth time, Nyame was already waiting for him. He had called everyone together: counsellors, elders, chiefs and musicians with drums. The tied-up python lay before the throne, the leopard hung from a pole, the calabash of hornets hummed, and beside them sat the forest fairy, still stuck to the doll.

The Sky God was silent for a long time. Then he rose.

“Listen, all of you,” he said. “Great chiefs came to me with treasures and could not pay. But this little spider has paid. So from this day on, all my stories belong to Anansi. And from now on, let them be called spider stories.”

“Spider stories!” the counsellors cheered.

Boom-boom-boom! went the drums.

Nyame waved his hand, and all the captives were set free. The python slithered back to his stream, the leopard went back to his forest, and the hornets flew home to their hollow. Someone gently unstuck the fairy from the doll with warm water. She snorted at Anansi, but it seemed that she smiled, just a little.

And the Sky God gave the ebony chest to the spider.

Anansi came down to earth that same evening. The chest was heavy, and the thread beneath it hummed like a plucked string. Down below, people sat silently by the fire, as always.

Anansi opened the chest.

Out flew the stories! There were stories about cunning tortoises and proud lions, about faraway rivers, magic pots and brave children. They scattered over the villages like fireflies, flew into every home and settled beside every fire.

All at once, people found words on their tongues that they longed to tell. The first mother began, “Once upon a time…”, and the children shuffled closer. Then a grandfather began, then a neighbour, then someone else. For the very first time, tales rang out over the village, and the fire crackled so merrily that it seemed to be listening too.

And Anansi went back home, to his web between two stalks of grass. Aso was already waiting for him with supper.

“Well?” she asked.

“Every last one,” Anansi smiled. “And your palm branch has become a story too.”

He ate his fill, snuggled into his web as the night wind gently rocked it, and fell asleep. In the village the stories went on whispering for a long time, and the children fell asleep to them one by one.

And ever since, all the tales in the world have been called spider stories. Even this one, which you’ve just heard.