151 Tales From Africa

Once, there was a poor man named Setelane who spent his days catching mice. He ate only the meat of mice and wore the clothes made from the skin of mice. One day, as he was going around searching for the mice, he found a very big ostrich-egg lying on the ground. He picked it […]

Once, a boy named Kaga asked his friends to come along with him and they would all trap mice. But his trap didn’t have food or a spring. He thought of an idea. When all of them had kept their traps, he said to his friends, “Let’s go and bathe in the river.” While his

One day, Agenga was sitting and conversing with the King. The King said, “You can’t befool me. If you succeed, I promise I’ll give you my gun.” Late afternoon, the King went to hunt in the forest. Agenga went in the opposite direction. He kept a watch on the King and pretended to be the

A bush rat named Oyot and Emiong, the bat were great friends. They always ate together. But the bat was secretly jealous of the bush rat. Whenever Emiong cooked the food it was very tasty, and Oyot would ask him how he made the food so tasty, “How do you prepare the soup? It is

Mbotu was a very famous King of Old Town, Calabar. He was often at war and was always successful. All his prisoners were made slaves. As a result, he became very rich, but, on the other hand, he had many enemies. Particularly, the people of Itu were very angry with him and wanted to kill

Once upon a time, a husband and his wife set out upon a journey through the forest. As was the custom, the husband walked ahead carrying his rifle and the wife followed behind. When they reached a dense part of the forest, all of a sudden some shiftas (handits) emerged from the forest. The man

Once upon a time, there was a hungry snake which had not eaten for many days. One day, it came out of the forest and went into a farmer’s house. There, the snake saw a bottle of milk. As it was very thin, the snake slithered into the bottle and drank the milk. Now, it

Long ago, Thunder and Lightning lived on the earth with the other people. Thunder was an old mother sheep and Lightning was her son, a ram. The King made them live at the far end of the town, as far as possible from the other people’s houses. Whenever the ram was furious, he used to

Long ago, there was a town of exceptionally lazy people. They neither cleaned their houses nor kept their streets clean. They did not even bother to weed their vegetable patches. The chief of the town hated looking at the dirty streets and so every now and then he would start a clean-up campaign. But only

Long ago, two people who lived in Itang village went to the forest of Obil to trap some animals. They set the trap and caught a lion, but the lion broke the trap and ran away. Now the lion was very angry and waited for the hunters. When he saw the hunters, he chased them

One day, Agenga and his friend, Omet, went to Pinykew village near Gambela. They were tired and hungry. When they asked for food, people gave them fresh, uncooked corn (maize). While they rested, they wondered how to cook the corn. Then, Omet said, “Let me find a way to cook it.” Suddenly, Omet’s eyes fell

Long ago, there lived a cat. One day, she thought that the lion was the strongest of all the animals. It was good to have strong friends. So, she decided to go to the lion and befriend him. The cat did so and they became good friends. Once, they went out for a walk together

Long ago in ancient Egypt, there lived a beautiful girl named Rhapdosis. She was a slave. The other slaves who lived in the grand house hardly spoke to her. The slave girls were jealous of her beauty and the slave boys thought she was proud and arrogant. But she was kind and shy. She did

Once upon a time, there was a very poor man who had only husks for himself and his wife to eat. One day, a rich man came to his farm. The poor man said to his wife to mix some husks with water and give it to the rich man to drink. After drinking it,

Once, a couple had a son named Hantisho meaning ‘sneeze’. One day, when they were going out, they asked Hantisho to stay at home and sleep. Hantisho slept without closing the door. A hyena was passing and saw the open door. He went in and saw the sleeping boy. The hyena carried the boy to