Antigua Tales — Part 1: Why Dog Has a Hollow Around His Belly · Tar Baby · Leaf Disguise: Mock Plea · Dancing to Mouse · The Escape · The False Fortune-Teller · The False Swimmer · The Lazy Boy · The Three Questions · Master Thief
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Part One of a new shelf: the tales of Antigua, from "Folk-Lore from Antigua, British West Indies" by John H. Johnson, published in the Journal of American Folk-Lore in 1921. The tales were recited by George W. Edwards, a native of Green Bay, Antigua — a town about two miles outside St. John's — who had lived ten years in New York, and who told them there, over some twenty-five evening visits in 1920, to Johnson, who wrote them down; Elsie Clews Parsons added the comparative notes. Billed by teller, collector and paper, as the tales Edwards told; not a survey of all Antiguan tradition, and no completeness is claimed. The tales were screened in the order they stand in Johnson's paper under this shelf's standing rule, and a great many were set aside — every one stands named, with its reason, in the shelf register.
Why Dog Has a Hollow Around His Belly — Nancy squeezes the swallowed doukouna fruit out of Brother Dog. Tar Baby — Nancy steals water from the animals' well and sticks fast to the tar figure, head, hands and feet. Leaf Disguise: Mock Plea — Rabbit talks his captors out of burning, drowning and hanging, and into the one throw he wants. Dancing to Mouse — Mouse plays the drum he was too little to help make, and dances every watcher off his post. The Escape — the sprats talk Miss Pigeon into a walk and slip away into the sea, singing. The False Fortune-Teller — Maka counts the dishes aloud and frightens the thieving servants into returning the jewels. The False Swimmer — Maka, who cannot swim at all, wins the divers' race without getting wet. The Lazy Boy — Jack's college Latin: shoest, forkest, spoonest. The Three Questions — the professor's servant answers the Pasha in his master's cloak. Master Thief — Jack the shoemaker's apprentice steals the butcher's sheep twice over, on two bets, with one slipper and a voice in the cane.
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
2:05 Why Dog Has a Hollow Around His Belly
3:34 Tar Baby
6:24 Leaf Disguise: Mock Plea
8:29 Dancing to Mouse
10:25 The Escape
13:22 The False Fortune-Teller
16:24 The False Swimmer
19:10 The Lazy Boy
20:51 The Three Questions
22:53 Master Thief
John H. Johnson, "Folk-Lore from Antigua, British West Indies," The Journal of American Folk-Lore, Vol. 34 (1921) — public domain.
Narrated by Benedetto. Music: opening, closing and between-story theme, "Desert Cello Rhapsody" — heard at the introduction, between the stories, and at the close only; the tales themselves are read dry.
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Antigua folk tales · Nancy stories · Anansi stories · George W. Edwards · John H. Johnson · Caribbean folk tales · world folk tales · free audiobook
