In the beginning, all the stories in the world belonged to Nyame, the Sky God, and he kept them locked away in a box beside his throne, so that there were no stories at all upon the earth, and the days were long and quiet and dull.
Now Anansi the spider longed for the stories, as he longed for most things that were not yet his. So he spun a thread up into the sky, all the long way to the house of the Sky God, and asked to buy them.
Nyame laughed, for great kings and rich chiefs had come asking for the stories before, and none had met his price. “You?” said the Sky God, looking down at the small spider. “Greater than you have tried and failed. But if you wish it, here is my price. Bring me Onini the python, who is longer than a man is tall; and Osebo the leopard, whose teeth are like spears; and the Mmoboro, the hornets that swarm and sting; and Mmoatia, the fairy whom no one has ever seen. Bring me these, and the stories are yours.”
“I shall bring them,” said Anansi, and the Sky God laughed again to hear it.
Anansi went home, and he thought, for thinking was the thing he did best of all. Then he cut a long stout branch and went down to the river where the python lived, muttering aloud as he walked. “Longer than the branch. Not longer than the branch. My wife is wrong. She is quite wrong.” The python heard, and asked what he was arguing about. “My wife says you are not so long as this branch,” said Anansi, “and I say you are far longer. Let us measure and see.” The python, proud of his length, stretched himself out along the branch; and Anansi, quick as a wink, bound him to it round and round with his strong thread, from end to end. “Now you are measured,” he said, and carried the python up to the sky.
For the hornets, Anansi took a gourd and filled it with water, and poured some over himself, and some over the hornets’ nest, and cried, “The rains have come! Quick, shelter here, out of the wet, inside my dry gourd!” And the foolish hornets, thankful, flew every one into the gourd; and Anansi stopped the mouth of it and carried them up to the sky.
For the leopard, Anansi dug a deep pit in the path where the leopard walked, and covered it over, and by morning the leopard had fallen in and could not climb out. Anansi came by and offered to help, and let down two long branches, and when the leopard had climbed near the top, Anansi wrapped him fast in thread as he had the python, and carried him up to the sky.
And for Mmoatia the fairy, Anansi carved a little wooden doll and smeared it all over with sticky gum, and set it beneath a tree with a dish of yams in its lap, and pulled a thread to make it seem to nod. The fairy came, and thought the doll a friend, and offered it some yams, and grew angry when it would not answer, and struck it; and her hand stuck fast to the gum, and then the other hand, and then she was caught altogether. And Anansi took her up to the sky as well.
Then Nyame the Sky God looked upon the python, and the hornets, and the leopard, and the fairy, all brought before him by the smallest of creatures, and he was astonished. “Anansi,” he said, “kings and chiefs have failed where you have won. From this day the stories of the world are yours, and they shall bear your name.”
And so it is that to this day the old tales are called Anansi stories, spider stories, for it was the spider, by his wit and not his strength, who brought them down out of the sky and gave them to the world.
It is not the strongest who wins the prize, but the cleverest; and stories, of all things, belong to the quick of mind.