Anansi had a sick chicken. Knowing it would die soon, he took the chicken to a neighbor.
"Please take care of my chicken while I go to town," Anansi said.
The neighbor agreed.
The chicken died.
Anansi returned for the chicken.
"Your chicken died," said the neighbor. "Just take one of mine."
"No!" yelled Anansi. "My chicken would have laid eggs. Those eggs would have become chickens and laid more eggs that would also become chickens. You owe me for all that!"
"Well, go take a sheep then," said the neighbor.
That's how Anansi turned a chicken into a sheep.
Inspired by: Jamaica Anansi Stories by Martha Warren Beckwith
Notes: This is story 5a in the book. Beckwith heard this story from Joseph Macfarlane; additional information in Beckwith's notes. This is just the first part of the story. Anansi does this again and again (in the original story, it's not about a sick chicken, but about the passage of time), and finally the woman gets tiger to help her catch Anansi, disguising tiger as a sheep.
No comments:
Post a Comment