A Book of Tricksters Read online

  A Book of Tricksters

  Tales From Many Lands

  Retold by Jon C. Stott

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  How Anansi Brought Stories to the People: Ghana

  How Brer Rabbit Got Out of Big Trouble: United States

  How Nanabozho Lost His Big Feast:Canada and United States

  How Kancil Built a Crocodile Bridge: Indonesia

  How the Billy Goats Gruff Got Across the Bridge: Norway

  Why the Shining One Shines No More: India

  How the Tortoise Defeated the Willy Wagtail: Australia

  How Gretel Made Things Get Better: Germany

  How Fin Defeated Cucullin: Ireland

  How the Hodja Used His Wisdom: Turkey

  How Zhao Paid His Taxes: China

  How Eugene Escaped Poverty: France

  Why Robin Hood Became a Butcher: England

  How Maui Discovered the Secret of Fire: Hawaii

  How Raven Freed the Sun: Canada and United States

  Glossary

  The Trail of the Tales

  Acknowledgements

  This collection of retellings of traditional trickster stories would not have been possible without the help of many people. I am indebted to all those who have retold the tales over many centuries. I have learned a great deal from two of these retellers—Gerald McDermott and Paul Goble—about ways of approaching stories from cultures different than my own. To Vivian Sinclair of Heritage House, who encouraged me to undertake this project, and to Grenfell Featherstone, who offered wonderful editorial guidance, thank you. Your patience and expertise are greatly appreciated. To Michelle Armstrong and her Grade 6 class at St. Mary School in Edmonton, Alberta, and to Candy Michalski and her Grade 3 class at Holmes School, New Britain, Connecticut, go my appreciation for giving me the opportunities to try out these stories in early versions. The feedback from these teachers and students has been invaluable. And to Clare Stott and Chris Doyle, who read drafts of the stories and offered insightful suggestions, thank you.

  :: For Sophie and Gillian ::

  Introduction

  For centuries, people around the world have been telling stories about tricksters, characters who solve problems by using their wits to fool others. Sometimes, these tricksters want to help people. Other times, they use their cleverness for selfish reasons. Occasionally, they aren’t as clever as they think they are and get tricked themselves.

  A Book of Tricksters retells stories from 14 different countries. Many of the tricksters in these stories say and do similar things. However, there are differences in the personalities of these characters and in the lessons in the stories. That is because, although people all over the world are alike in many ways, people from one cultural group have different attitudes about life than people in another cultural group.

  There’s a reason trickster stories have been popular all around the world for hundreds and sometimes thousands of years. People who heard or read them found them entertaining. When they thought about them, they often learned more about themselves as members of their group.

  I hope that you will find these stories entertaining and that they will help you to better understand people from many different lands.

  How ANANSI Brought Stories to the People

  GHANA :: For centuries, the Ashanti people of western Africa have told stories about Anansi. In some of them he looks like a spider, and in others he is an old man. In this story, he helps his people by using his wits to perform difficult and dangerous tasks.

  The people were unhappy. There were no stories anywhere on earth. All the stories belonged to Nyami the Sky God. He kept them all in a box right next to his royal stool. Nyami was a very powerful God and had a very bad temper. The people were afraid to ask him to share his stories with them.

  One day, Anansi announced to the people of the village, “I’ll try to get Nyami’s stories.”

  Everyone looked at him in amazement.

  “You’re so old and so small and so frail,” they said.

  But Anansi said nothing and left the village.

  He climbed to the sky and walked toward the Sky God. Nyami sat on his royal stool, surrounded by his nobles.

  “The people in my village would like me to bring your stories to them,” Anansi said as he bowed politely.

  Instead of showing his temper, Nyami laughed loudly. “Yes, Anansi, you can have my stories—all of them, if…” and he paused and grinned, “…if you bring me Onini the crushing python, Osebo the terrifying leopard, Mboro the fierce hornets and Moatia the invisible fairy.”

  When Anansi replied that he would bring what Nyami asked for, the Sky God laughed again. “You are so old and so small and so frail, Anansi. Strong, powerful and rich people have failed to bring me these creatures. What makes you think that you will succeed?” Anansi said nothing, but bowed again and left the home of the Sky God.

  When he returned to his village, he went straight to his hut. He did not speak to the villagers who crowded around him asking if Nyami had given him the stories. That night, they lingered outside his hut. They wanted to learn what had happened. But when Anansi and his wife whispered to each other, the villagers could not hear what they said.

  The next morning, Anansi left from the village quietly. The villagers he passed looked puzzled. They did not know what he was going to do.

  He strode down the jungle path, swinging his machete and looking up at the branches of the palm trees that stretched over the trail. Then he stopped, shinnied up the trunk of a tree and chopped one of the branches. He climbed down, trimmed the leaves of the branch he had cut and stood it up on one end. It was more than twice as tall as he was.

  He walked over to another tree, shinnied up it and chopped down three string-creepers. He coiled the creepers like ropes over his shoulder, and with his machete in one hand and the long palm branch in the other, he continued along the trail.

  “It can’t be true,” Anansi muttered to himself. “I don’t believe it. Surely my wife must be wrong. It’s impossible that Onini could be that long.”

  “What are you talking about, Anansi? What are you saying about me?”

  The old man looked in the palm branches above him for the owner of the voice. At first, he could only see the thick gray branch. Then he saw Onini the crushing python, stretched out and ready to drop on him, wind his coils around him and crush him for dinner.

  “Oh, hello, Onini,” said Anansi casually. “My wife told me that you were the longest creature in the jungle. She said that you’d stretch out longer than two men lying on the ground. I said that she was foolish.”

  Onini frowned. “I’m really insulted, Anansi. Of course I’m the longest creature in the jungle, and,” he added, “I’m the most magnificent.”

  “Well, you certainly look very long up there in the tree. Why don’t you come down here? I cut this stick to be twice my height. I’ll put it on the ground to measure how much longer than it you are.”

  “Of course,” Onini replied, “if it doesn’t take too long. I want to get back on the branch and wait for a deer to pass under. I’m getting hungry.”

  Onini slithered down from the tree and stretched himself out beside the branch. He was horrified; his nose didn’t even reach the end of the branch.

  “Don’t worry,” Anansi told him. “I’ll help you. I’ll tie the tip of your tail to one end of the branch, and then you must stretch as far as you can.”

  Anansi tied the python’s tail with the end of one of the string-creepers he had cut. As Onini stretched out, Anansi wound the creeper around the snake and the branch. “To keep you from slipping backward,” he explained. “Pull hard.”

  “Am I there y
et?” Onini called. Anansi said that he’d check. He told the python to close his eyes and work harder. Onini did as he was told. He wanted everyone to know how magnificent he was.

  Anansi continued to wrap the string-creeper around Onini, and when the snake stretched his head over the end of the branch the old man quickly tied the end of the creeper around Onini’s neck.

  “You certainly are as long as you said,” Anansi exclaimed. “And I’m sure Nyami will think you are magnificent.”

  Anansi grabbed the end of the palm branch and dragged the snake back to the village. The villagers gathered around him and stared at Onini the crushing python, who did not look so frightening now that he had been bound head to tail to a palm branch. Anansi said nothing.

  The next morning, Anansi left his hut again. This time he carried his machete and the smallest coil of string-creeper. As he walked along the jungle trail, he muttered to himself, just loudly enough for someone who might be listening to hear, “It’s such a wonderful game. I wish I could find someone to play it with me.”

  “I’ll play,” came a voice above Anansi. He looked up. Among the flickering shadows and patches of sunlight, he could just see Osebo, the leopard.

  “I’m really very good at games,” the leopard continued. And he jumped down from the branch and strode up to Anansi. “What’s your game called? How do you play it?”

  “It’s the Tie-Me-Up game. First I tie you up. Then I untie you, and you tie me up. Whoever is the fastest at tying the other up is the winner.”

  “That sounds like a great game,” said Osebo. And he thought to himself that when he’d tied Anansi up, he wouldn’t untie him. He’d have him for lunch.

  The old man cut the string-creeper into three pieces and told the leopard to lie on his back and put his legs up in the air. He tied Osebo’s front paws together, then the back paws. With the third piece of creeper, he tied the front and back paws together. By the time he’d finished, Osebo had counted up to nine.

  “That was pretty quick, Anansi,” said Osebo the leopard, “but not as quick as I’ll be. Hurry up and untie me.”

  “I don’t think I’d better do that,” the old man replied. “Perhaps when I take you to Nyami, he’ll play the Tie-Me-Up game with you.”

  Anansi took hold of the creeper that tied Osebo’s paws together and dragged him back to the village. The villagers flocked around Anansi when he returned. Osebo the leopard did not look so dangerous when he was tied up. Anansi said nothing.

  When Anansi came out of his hut the third morning, he didn’t have a string-creeper coiled over his shoulder, but he carried his machete in one hand and a hollowed-out gourd in the other. He stopped by a stream to fill the gourd with water. Then he cut a very large leaf from a plantain tree and continued along his way.

  On this trip, he didn’t mumble, but he did look around and above him very carefully. There, in the branches of a tree, he saw what he was searching for—a large gray ball hanging from a branch. It was the nest of Mboro the fierce hornets.

  Anansi climbed up to the nest. He held the great leaf over his head, opened the gourd, poured some water over the leaf, and then poured the rest over the hornets’ nest.

  “It’s a rainstorm! Your nest will be destroyed, and your wings will get all wet!” he called out in a voice filled with alarm.

  The hornets flew out and circled around in a panic.

  “Quickly! Quickly! You’ll be dry inside.” Anansi directed Mboro, the fierce hornets, to fly into the gourd. In a few seconds, when they were all buzzing excitedly inside, Anansi closed the gourd.

  “Let us out,” they demanded angrily. “We didn’t sting you before, but we will now.”

  “Maybe you can try stinging Nyami. You’ll be seeing him soon,” Anansi replied.

  Anansi returned to the village with a gourd under his arm. The villagers could hear a buzzing sound, but they did not know what Anansi had trapped inside the gourd. Anansi said nothing.

  On the fourth morning, Anansi didn’t take his machete, but he did take the longest coil of string-creeper, a basket with a wooden doll in it and two bowls, one filled with yams, the other with sticky latex.

  He didn’t walk very far from the village this time, and he didn’t look up to the trees. After a few minutes, he stopped in front of an odum tree. He put the doll on the ground, tied one end of the vine around its waist, placed the bowl of yams on the ground in front of it and poured the latex over the doll. Anansi held on to the other end of the creeper. He walked off the trail and hid behind the odum tree.

  Soon he heard a whirring sound. It was Moatia the invisible fairy, who danced so quickly that she couldn’t be seen. Anansi waited behind the tree as the whirring sound came closer to the doll.

  A voice came out of the air, speaking to the doll: “I want to eat those yams. I am going to take them.” The doll said nothing, but when Anansi gently pulled the creeper, the doll nodded and appeared to agree that the fairy could take the yams.

  The yams quickly disappeared, and the bowl sat empty on the ground.

  “Thank you,” said the voice. The doll didn’t reply.

  “You shouldn’t be rude. You should say something when people talk to you,” Moatia snapped.

  When the doll didn’t answer, Moatia started to feel angry. “If you don’t answer me, I’ll slap you in the face.”

  Anansi kept very still and did not pull the creeper. The doll didn’t say anything. It didn’t even nod. Although Anansi could not see Moatia, he heard a smack and saw the doll’s face move suddenly. Moatia the invisible fairy was stuck on the latex. She couldn’t move so quickly now. When he peeked around the tree, Anansi could see the outline of her body.

  “Let me go right now, or I’ll hit you again.”

  Anansi heard another smack. Both of Moatia’s hands stuck to the doll. Anansi could see her more clearly now that the latex had slowed her down. She pulled hard, but she couldn’t get her hands off the doll’s face. She was so furious, she kicked it. But when she tried to pull her leg back, it was stuck. She could hardly move at all, and Anansi could see her clearly. He stepped out from behind the odum tree.

  When Moatia saw him, she became frightened and struggled to escape. She pushed her other leg against the doll to free herself. It stuck to the latex. Now she couldn’t move at all.

  “I’m very pleased to see you,” Anansi said politely. “I’m sure Nyami will be, too.”

  He tied her up, being careful not to get stuck himself. He held on to the end of the creeper as he carried her back to his village.

  The villagers gathered around him as he walked toward his hut. They had never seen Moatia the invisible fairy before and did not know who it was that Anansi had tied up to the sticky doll. Anansi said nothing.

  The next morning, Nyami the Sky God and his important lords were talking about Anansi when the Sky God caught sight of something in the distance. Someone was walking slowly toward them. Soon, Nyami and his lords could see that it was Anansi, bent over and dragging a very large net behind him.

  When Anansi reached the Sky God, he dragged the net in front of Nyami, bowed and said nothing. Everyone was amazed. There inside the net were Onini the crushing python, Osebo the terrifying leopard, Mboro the fierce hornets and Moatia the invisible fairy.

  “You’ve done it, Anansi,” Nyami exclaimed. “How? You are so old and so small and so frail.”

  “With a machete, some string-creepers, a gourd and a doll,” the old man replied. Then he added, “And with some words and a little silence.”

  “The stories are yours. You’ve earned them,” Nyami proclaimed. He gave Anansi the box beside the royal stool. Anansi put the box under his arm, bowed and started home. The important lords cheered as he walked away.

  That night, the villagers gathered around and listened quietly as Anansi told them his adventures. Then he opened the box. Words flowed out like hornets from a nest. As they circled in the air, the words joined into sentences, and the sentences joined into stories. Man
y of the stories stayed in Anansi’s village. Others, caught by the winds, sailed into the sky and landed all over the world.

  How BRER RABBIT Got Out of Big Trouble

  UNITED STATES :: When West Africans were captured and taken across the Atlantic to work as slaves, they told stories about tricksters who used their cleverness on those who had power over them. Brer Rabbit was a very popular story hero.

  One hot summer afternoon, Brer Bear met Brer Fox walking along the dusty road.

  “Hello, Brer Fox,” Brer Bear said. “It sure is hot today.”

  “It sure is,” Brer Fox replied. “And I’m sure hot under the collar.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You remember when I was digging my new well? I asked Brer Rabbit if he would help and told him that, if he did, he could share the water. He showed up the next morning, worked for a few minutes, then dropped the shovel and started holding his back. Told me that he’d pulled some muscles and couldn’t work anymore. He went home. Didn’t even bother to pick the shovel up. It took me four days working by myself to get the job done.

  “The morning after I’d finished, I found rabbit tracks all around the well. And the water was all muddied up. This happened two days in a row. So I decided to catch him. I snuck up early one morning and nearly grabbed him, but he got away. I could hear him singing about what a beautiful day it was.”

  “He said he’d help me, too—when I was working the soil so that I could sow collard greens seed,” said Brer Bear. “After a half hour of digging, he said he had blisters on his hands. He dropped the rake and took off. He didn’t even bother to put the rake away, and I stepped on it. Handle whacked me on the nose.

  “I had to finish the job alone, and it took me a long time, too. Then, one morning after the greens came up, I found half a row eaten right down to the dirt. And there were rabbit tracks in the dirt. I nearly caught him, too. But he got away, singing that same song about a beautiful day. You’re hot under the collar, you’re so mad. And I’m steaming about what he did to me.”