African Folktales at Internet Archive: The King's Drum

For today's anthology, I wanted to return to one of my favorite story collectors, Harold Courlander, and his book The King's Drum and Other African Stories, which is just a click away at the Internet Archive.

This book contains 29 stories from a wide range of different African storytelling traditions. Be sure to check out the notes in the back of the book for each story; Courlander often includes variant stories for comparison and his notes are always fascinating.

The illustrations are by Enrico Arno, who contributed artwork for other Courlander books also. Here's his illustration for the famous story of the Moon's message, this time with grasshopper and rabbit as the two messengers:

And here's the illustration for the story of the hunter and his talking leopard:

You can find out more about Courlander in this earlier post: Treasury of African Folklore, and also here:  Ijapa the Tortoise, and Other Nigerian Tales, which also features illustrations by Arno. Plus there are yet more Courlander boos yet to come!

Meanwhile, for today, this African storytelling panorama awaits you at the Archive!

The King's Drum and Other African Stories

by Harold Courlander