Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/298

290 subdue those ferocious animals if Tiger Lad not been killed and quartered by Sarah Winyan's brothers. As to the aunt, she received the punishment she merited."

To these Ananci stories given by Lewis may be added the following extract from Dr. Thomas Winterbottom's Account of the native Africans in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, published in 1803. The author says (vol. i. p. 120): "The natives round Sierra Leone are fond of inventing little histories or fables, in relating which they often spend a great part of the night; in these animals are usually the dramatis personæ; the stratagems of the leopard and alligator are occasionally introduced, and form as brilliant a part as those of the fox in the fables of Æsop. The two following stories may serve as specimens of their mode of relating them: an elephant and a goat had once a dispute which could eat most; and, in order to decide it, they went into a meadow as big as from here to white man's country. After having eaten some time the goat lay down upon a rock to chew the cud. 'What are you doing?' said the elephant to him. 'I am eating this rock,' replied the goat; 'and when I have done I will eat you.' The elephant, terrified at this unexpected threat, betook himself to flight, and since that time has never dared to enter a town in which there is a goat."

Again—"A man and his wife were travelling through a thick wood, and carried with them their spoiled and froward child. Seeing a gourd lying near the path, the child cried for it, and the father took it up, and pursued his journey. Soon afterwards one of those spirits called Min, to whom the gourd belonged, awaking from his sleep, and being thirsty, seeks for his gourd bottle. Not finding it, he sings a couplet, which he repeats once or twice in a plaintive tone of voice, 'Where are you, my gourd? Why have you gone away, and left me thus alone?' In answer to this, the gourd instantly replies in the same tone, 'I have not run away from you, oh Min, but have been carried off against my will.' The man, alarmed at this strange occurrence, throws down the gourd, and, with his wife and child, endeavours to escape by flight. Min, pursuing the direction of the sound, arrives at the spot, and takes up his gourd. Provoked at the theft, he resolves to find the culprit, and sings as before—'Where is the wretch who stole my gourd? I'll wreak my vengeance on his guilty head.' The child then accuses itself, and is dropped by the father and mother, who pursue their flight in the most agonizing state