Anansi The Spider
- Readings Available
- English
- Presenter
- Somae Claire Murray
- Duration
- 5:31 (minutes:seconds)
This is an African tale about Anansi the Spider, a trickster who lives by different rules than the rest of us.
Sister Goat had three lovely kids: Hanna, Danna and Rees. She travelled up and down the country. Everywhere she went, Brother Anansi would show up with his big eyes staring. He showed too much attention to the beautiful children.
One day Sister Goat received a warning from a cousin of Anansi that Brother Anansi was sharpening his paws on the three lovely kiddies. The cousin, Brother Spider, offered to find her a safe hiding place in a cotton tree and created a web to serve as a rope. High up in the tree he made a nice safe bed. Sister Goat took her children up into the tree.
The next day when she returned to climb the tree, she sang a special ditty to ask the children to send down a rope to help her climb up. Unknown to her was the fact that Anansi was nearby and watching.
When Sister Goat had to go away again, Anansi tried to mimmick her call and the children sent down the rope for him to climb. But Sister Goat returned just in time to ask them to cut the rope, which they did.
Anansi fell to the ground and died. They were relieved, and they lived happily ever after.
The images used in the video excerpt are from an animation piece and the texts shown are screen directions for the original production.