Anansi with a Halloween twist

I told my first story in German today with our preschoolers. As I waited behind the wooden table I had set up on our blue rug, I watched the kids try to make sense of this new person at reading time (it's usually one of the other teachers, while I clean up after snack), and a new format of experiencing a story. Their eyes were big, and they hesitated at first, until they realized: Puppet Show! (sort of) Then there was hardly anything to keep them still, as they wriggled to find a place and kept sneaking up to look at the puppets behind the table. Can you really punish curiosity? All I could do was begin to satisfy it...

From behind the table came my right hand in a black glove: Anansi, the spider.

There once was a spider named Anansi. Anansi wanted only one thing in the world: to own all of the stories of the world! But at that time, they belonged to Nyame, the Sky God in the sun. So he spun his way all the way up to the sun to find him. When he asked to be given all the stories of the world, Nyame responded: "Hah! Do you think I will just give them to you? You must pay the price, Anansi! You must bring me three things: the fierce hornets of the forest, the great snake of the swamp, and the mighty tiger of the jungle. Then, and only then, will I grant you all the stories of the world!"

So, Anansi spun his way back down into the world and set about his tasks. He went to find the fierce hornets of the forest with a few things to help him: an empty gourd (pumpkin) and a big jug of water. He settled down close to where the hornets would come, and waited ... waited ... waited ... until - there they came! - the hornets came close. At this, Nyame started throwing the water from the jug up into the air, making the hornets all wet. "Hornets! Hornets!" he cried, "The rains are coming!" "Oh, Anansi, what shall we do? We hate the rain!" they called back. "Come into my gourd, where it is nice and dry," said Anansi. They did, and when they were all inside, Anansi closed up the opening with thick leaves. First task ... done!

Next, Anansi took a long bamboo stick with him into the swamp to find the great snake. When he found him, he made a bet: "I bet," said Anansi, "that you are not as long as my bamboo stick." "That tiny thing?" scoffed the snake. "Of course I'm longer." So he laid down next to the bamboo stick and streeeetched his head up toward one end and streeeetched his tail down toward the other. All the while, Anansi was weaving his silk around and around and around the body of the snake and the bamboo stick until the snake was entirely tied to the stick and couldn't move! Second task ... done!

Now, the third - surely the most difficult - task of all. Anansi crawled up into a tree and waited for the tiger to walk by. He waited ... waited ... waited ... until - there he came! - the tiger trotted by on his way home. Anansi followed him all the way back to his cave and watched exactly where the tiger slept ... (snore!) ... The next morning, when the tiger left his cave, Anansi set to work spinning a thick and strong web over the place where the tiger had slept. When the tiger returned that evening and laid down, he didn't see the web and laid down right on top of it. Anansi took the edges of the web, tied all the ends to each other, and had captured the tiger in his great, thick web. Third task ... done!

And so, Anansi spun his way back up to Nyame, this time with the hornets in the gourd, the snake on the bamboo stick, and the tiger in the web, and paid his price. Nyame was very surprised, but knew he must keep his promise. When Anansi spun his way back down to the earth again, he brought with him all the stories of the world, to tell to all the creatures of the earth. And do you know what? He is still telling them today.

(Adapted for German-language-learning preschoolers; I originally learned the story in Elder and Wong's (eds) Family of Earth and Sky)