Anansi, Tiger, and the Woman's Daughters

A mother had beautiful daughters, but she wouldn't let them marry. "No husband is good enough for my daughters!" she said.
She locked them in a house. "Only open the door to someone who sings this song," and the mother sang a special song.
Tiger wanted those daughters!
With his rough voice, Tiger couldn't sing the song.
"Petchary can sing that song," said Anansi.
When the bird sang, the daughters opened the door, and Tiger gobbled them up.
When the mother came home, she cried and cried.
"That's what comes of locking daughters up instead of letting them marry," said Anansi.


Inspired byWest Indian Folk-Tales by Philip Sherlock.
Notes: This story appears on p. 112 of the book: Why Women Won't Listen. Sherlock's version has the blacksmith softening Tiger's voice and does not include Anansi or the petchary bird; the version with Anansi appears in Wona's A Selection of Anansi Stories (German edition online; I haven't found the English online), as reported in Elswit's Caribbean Story Finder, #12.




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