Africa has a wonderfully rich store of folk tales that have been passed down from one generation to the next. There are stories about how the world came into being, stories that tell of the relationships between human beings and between man and his environment, and of the lessons to be learned from everyday experience. The tales are like the fairy talkes told all over the world, but they have a strong African flavour that is as real as the smell of rain on hot earth. The Best of African Folklore takes the reader into an enchanted world where animals can talk and humans are often changed into different forms, where magic is commonplace and reality is turned delightfully on its head. Despite numerous setbacks, things usually turn out all right in the end. Wicked and greedy people (and animals) come off worst and the good receive their just rewards. The gods are stern but fair, and every story has a moral for those who are wise enough to see it.

Collection of traditional folk tales introduces a host of interesting people and unusual animals — among them "The Cricket and the Toad," "The Tortoise and His Broken Shell," and "The Boy in the Drum."

Moral African Folktales for all ages. African Folktales are common to most of the tribes and peoples of Africa. Different cultures, whilst sharing a common point of reference, will colour each story with their own rich, unique heritage. These tales by tradition were handed down by word of mouth through the ages, to be enjoyed by young and old alike. Honouring tradition, I have tried to keep the "voice" of the original storytellers of old, in the same manner in which they spoke centuries ago. Contractions have been left out, since they were not the mode of speech in those bygone days. In Africa, myths and tall tales abound, around the next mountain, through yonder valley, you will find a story that almost sounds the same as one you have heard before. Thus, there are many versions of each tale. I believe this story captures the essence of originality, having been acquire from established oral traditions, thereby preserving uniqueness. The folktales of Africa have inspired countless expeditions in search of mysteries and treasures, from golden mountains, to lost tribes, to amazing animals. How did they get there? How were they made? Were they kind or fierce? Were they friendly or terrifying? Yes, some were gentle, some were vicious, but all had a story to tell. Who are they? What do they stand for, what nature do they have? All beings have traits of one kind or another, it is these which are discovered in folktales. This story has been built upon ancient traditions. As an African-born author, I owe a debt of gratitude to all our ancestors who passed down wonderful fables and tales, from which this story is derived. It is to them, I dedicate this book.

Winner • NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work (Fiction) Winner • Anne Izard Storytellers’ Choice Award Holiday Gift Guide Selection • Indiewire, San Francisco Chronicle, and Minneapolis Star-Tribune These nearly 150 African American folktales animate our past and reclaim a lost cultural legacy to redefine American literature. Drawing from the great folklorists of the past while expanding African American lore with dozens of tales rarely seen before, The Annotated African American Folktales revolutionizes the canon like no other volume. Following in the tradition of such classics as Arthur Huff Fauset’s “Negro Folk Tales from the South” (1927), Zora Neale Hurston’s Mules and Men (1935), and Virginia Hamilton’s The People Could Fly (1985), acclaimed scholars Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Maria Tatar assemble a groundbreaking collection of folktales, myths, and legends that revitalizes a vibrant African American past to produce the most comprehensive and ambitious collection of African American folktales ever published in American literary history. Arguing for the value of these deceptively simple stories as part of a sophisticated, complex, and heterogeneous cultural heritage, Gates and Tatar show how these remarkable stories deserve a place alongside the classic works of African American literature, and American literature more broadly. Opening with two introductory essays and twenty seminal African tales as historical background, Gates and Tatar present nearly 150 African American stories, among them familiar Brer Rabbit classics, but also stories like “The Talking Skull” and “Witches Who Ride,” as well as out-of-print tales from the 1890s’ Southern Workman. Beginning with the figure of Anansi, the African trickster, master of improvisation—a spider who plots and weaves in scandalous ways—The Annotated African American Folktales then goes on to draw Caribbean and Creole tales into the orbit of the folkloric canon. It retrieves stories not seen since the Harlem Renaissance and brings back archival tales of “Negro folklore” that Booker T. Washington proclaimed had emanated from a “grapevine” that existed even before the American Revolution, stories brought over by slaves who had survived the Middle Passage. Furthermore, Gates and Tatar’s volume not only defines a new canon but reveals how these folktales were hijacked and misappropriated in previous incarnations, egregiously by Joel Chandler Harris, a Southern newspaperman, as well as by Walt Disney, who cannibalized and capitalized on Harris’s volumes by creating cartoon characters drawn from this African American lore. Presenting these tales with illuminating annotations and hundreds of revelatory illustrations, The Annotated African American Folktales reminds us that stories not only move, entertain, and instruct but, more fundamentally, inspire and keep hope alive. The Annotated African American Folktales includes: Introductory essays, nearly 150 African American stories, and 20 seminal African tales as historical background The familiar Brer Rabbit classics, as well as news-making vernacular tales from the 1890s’ Southern Workman An entire section of Caribbean and Latin American folktales that finally become incorporated into the canon Approximately 200 full-color, museum-quality images

From the rift valley come stories of gods, tricksters, cattle and ogres from the many peoples of East Africa. Traditional stories bring a deeper understanding of the movement of peoples across East Africa. Common roots and differences between ancient peoples create a lively portrait with their fragile, powerful gods. The modern nations of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and more inherit the folk and mythic tales of the rift valley region. Here you'll find stories of ogres and tricksters, riddles and poems, figures such as the first man (Gikuyu) and woman (Mumbi), and great heroes of history such as Liongo. This new collection is created for the modern reader. FLAME TREE 451: From myth to mystery, the supernatural to horror, fantasy and science fiction, Flame Tree 451 offers a healthy diet of werewolves and mechanical men, blood-lusty vampires, dastardly villains, mad scientists, secret worlds, lost civilizations and escapist fantasies. Discover a storehouse of tales gathered specifically for the reader of the fantastic.

Sun and Moon must leave their earthly home after Sun invites the Sea to visit.

A wide and varied selection of myths from various African tribes south of the Sahara.

The deep forest and broad savannah, the campsites, kraals, and villages—from this immense area south of the Sahara Desert the distinguished American folklorist Roger D. Abrahams has selected ninety-five tales that suggest both the diversity and the interconnectedness of the people who live there. The storytellers weave imaginative myths of creation and tales of epic deeds, chilling ghost stories, and ribald tales of mischief and magic in the animal and human realms. Abrahams renders these stories in a narrative voice that reverberates with the rhythms of tribal song and dance and the emotional language of universal concerns. With black-and-white drawings throughout Part of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

Favorite African Folktales is a landmark work that gathers many of Africa's most cherished folktales-stories from an oral heritage that predates Ovid and Aesop-in one extraordinary volume. Nelson Mandela has selected these thirty-two tales, many of them translated from their original tongues, with the specific hope that Africa's oldest stories, as well as a few new ones, will be perpetuated by future generations and appreciated by children and adults throughout the world. Book jacket.