Anansi the Spider´s Storytelling Book

The Garden and Anansi the Spider

In the beginning there is a garden. You have always known that. It is a jungle like garden and a park like garden, a vegetable patch garden and a wild garden altogether. And in this garden there are animals. And there is Anansi the Spider. And sometimes there is you aswell.

Anansi the Spider loves to tell stories. In fact, sometimes he tells how he called the other animals in just to have someone to tell stories to. Because stories, Anansi says, are not the teller´s, they are the listener´s.

Other time he tells that all stories are his, Anansi´s. And we are much better off this way. For there are also Tiger stories. They are stories about conquer, blood, rape and destruction. About how the strong always triumphs, and the weak is crushed. Some people still tells Tiger´s stories.

Anansi knows (but he does not tell this to everybody) that people (and animals) are made of stories. Of the stories they are told and very specially of the stories they tell themselves.

Of course life goes on without stories. Trees take care of that. But even them would miss stories. In fact, whenever there is a specially confusing time, they try to put together all the broken pieces of stories lying around and whisper them with their leaves, hoping that someone will hear them and tell them whole.

Trees hold Life, but for telling stories, that is Anansi´s job. And ours.

The onion boy

Long long time ago, plants, animals and people were not as they are now. Fo example, the onion bulbs were narrower and their taste was mild, not spicy as now, but neither pleasant. Nobody had ever thought of cultivating it and it grew wild everywhere. There was a couple who lived in a valley with her small child. This boy developed a weird taste for onion bulbs and walked as far as his short legs could carry him in order to find them, dig them out and eat them as if they were apples. Until one day he really ate too many onions. He went to bed but woke up in the middle of the night and went outside. His parents had been ploughing the field the very same day. It smelt of earth. It was a spring night and the crescent moons reflected itself on the moisture drops. The boy stood for a while in the middle of the field till he felt sleepy again and then just went to sleep on the ground. Even though the earth was moist, it felt comfortable. He crouched and started to feel a pleasant tickling in his skin. The next morning, the parents called their child and got no answer. What they found was a certain area in the garden full of onion plants, which later grew plump and tasty bulbs. Every year they had a splendid harvest. But every time they cut one of those bulbs, they cried remembering the child they had lost.

The End

The demon and his master

Once upon a time there was an old magician who kept a small at his service.

The magician had trapped the demon in his younger days, something which proved extremely wise, for the magician lost his sight during a complicated invocation and, ever since, the demon had taken care of the household.

But on egray morning, as the demon was in the market in disguise, he sneezed. The vicar, who was next to him, smelt sulphur, discovered the trick, and quickly subdued the demon with the help of some holy water he always kept for the purpose. He was extremely happy, for it was the first evil spirit he ever trapped.

Up in the forest, the magician waited and waited, and then he began to call the demon in the most powerful ways, for the imp was bound to him. Till he realized that his servant was in trouble. And he even imagined in which kind of trouble.

He then dressed in black, hung a cross around his neck with some repugnance, took along stick to find his way and, guided by hi smemories, walked slowly and carefully down to the village. Nobody could possibly recognize him, because he had left as a young boy.

Once in the village square he went to the fountain. For years and years the fountain had been almost dry. Only a small stream of lazy water came out, which collected itself in a green pools that gave out a foul smell.

He sniffed the air and then touched the surface of the water with the stick. Instantly it became fresh and clean, and the fountain started to offer a pure flow of melted snow.

When the village people saw that, they immediately thought the magician a holy man.

Within a few hours the priest came to him and invited him for dinner.

Gettign to the vicary, the magician felt more and more loudly the bound with the demon, but he kept his face expressionless in fear of being discovered.

During the dinner, the priest asked the magician which business brought him to the village.

He answered he was looking for a slimy and treacherous demon, who had scaped and exorcism in the capital, and had the ability to disguise himself to hide among humans and create mischief.

The priest answered that the previous day he had discovered a demon in disguise in the market, and he had successfully trapped him and kept him in the cellar in a glass jar between two holy books.

The magician seemed surprised and praised the ability of the priest. Then he asked whether he could see the prisoner. The priest, who was flattered, agreed. After dinner, they went down to the cellar. As the magician entered, the demon started to jump in his jar. The priest interpreted that as fear. The magician said that it was the very same demon and asked the priest whether he could finish the job by destroying the imp.

The priest said he would be glad to get rid of the prisoner, for it does not become a vicary to keep such a guest. But he knew from the Bible that the number of evil spirits will be kept the same till the end of time, thus it would make no difference.

The magician smiled and replied that it was true that after the execution another demon would be concocted in Hell. But it would be a new, unexperienced demon, and it would take him a long time to learn the tricks and jests of this particular one.

The priest agreed and deep inside he felt relieved, because even though he was proud of his capture, he also felt uneasy.

They carried the glass jar to the churchyard. The magician turned the demon into dust with some terrible words, and then blew it onto the holy ground, where it smoked a bit and then disappeared. But on grain of dust remained in the magician´s long beard, and the essence of the demon within.

The next morning the magician resumed his travel, after many greetings and signs of respect.

Once out of sight of the church tower, and out of range of the church bells, he combed his beard and the demon came out looking most exhausted.

That night was deep, black and silent. The village people dreamt of several possible explanations of why the fountain had turned green and smelly again. The priest had a nightmare in which a giant with a white beard kept him prisoner in his garden. The magician dreamt that he was one more peasant, with a wife, children, grandchildren, and a secret desire to be a magician. The demon did not dream, of course, but he stood up in the middle of the night and watched the others dreaming.

End.