Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Public Domain Art: Lang's Violet Fairy Book



Lang published 25 different African stories in his Fairy Book series, with illustrations by Henry Justice Ford; more about Ford.

In the Violet Fairy Book, published in 1901, there are four different African folktales There are no illustrations for The Story of Halfman, but the other stories do have illustrations: The Story of a Gazelle, The Story of Hassebu, and The Nunda, Eater of People

These three illustrated stories are all Swahili tales from eastern Africa. The Story of a Gazelle is my personal favorite; it's a lot like the European fairy tale Puss-in-Boots, but way more intense; WAY more intense. Here's a close-up of the heroic gazelle beheading the monster (larger view):


See this Flickr album for larger file sizes. The images below have been resized to fit this blog; I have linked the titles of the stories below to where you can read them in the book.


















African Folktales at Internet Archive: Traditional Tales from Namibia

Carrying on with the this week's theme of stories from southern African, here is The Stolen Water and Other Stories: Traditional Tales from Namibia by Jennifer Davis, just a click away at Internet Archive.

This book contains 25 folktales, and in the acknowledgments, you'll see that the author thanks the many people who helped in gathering these stories, which is a welcome contrast to many older books (like Savory's Zulu book yesterday) in which there is not credit given to the people who helped in collecting and recording the stories. The book was published in Windhoek, Namibia in 1993:

The illustrations are by Libby Costandius, and there are LOTS of them, which really helps bring the story to life. You can see in this screenshot that the stories are abundantly illustrated:

Here is Jackal, dressed up as a dancing girl, hoping to crash a party and eat all the food:

And the illustrations are helpful for imagining the dangerous supernatural characters too, like the monster in the story of "Nehova and the Monster."

So, if you like stories about people or animals or supernatural creatures, you will find them all here, just a click away at Internet Archive:

The Stolen Water and Other Stories:
Traditional Tales from Namibia

by Jennifer Davis


Monday, August 30, 2021

Public Domain Art: Lang's Lilac Fairy Book




Lang published 25 different African stories in his Fairy Book series, with illustrations by Henry Justice Ford; more about Ford.

In the Lilac Fairy Book, published in 1910, there are two different African folktales with illustrations: The Heart of a Monkey and The One-Handed Girl. Both of these stories come from Steere's Swahili Tales: The Story of the Washerman's Donkey and Blessing or Property; Steere includes the Swahili texts.



See this Flickr album for larger file sizes of the images. The images below have been resized to fit this blog; I have linked the titles of the stories below to where you can read them in the book.

















African Folktales at Internet Archive: Zulu Fireside Tales

The focus this week is stories from southern Africa, so I wanted to feature one more book by Phyllis Savory, a South African author who wrote many collections of folktales retold. Here's her Zulu Fireside Tales, which is just a click away at the Internet Archive.


This collection was published in 1961, and as Savory explains in the introduction, she had met a Zulu girl named Duduzele who told her some Zulu stories, and then Savory started working with Duduzele's mother to learn more stories. As is typical (and unfortunate), Savory does not credit the mother by name, and instead has taken the stories and published them under her own name. But at least she did record the name of the girl whose stories provided the beginning of this book.

As often there are songs that form part of the stories, and the words to the songs are provided in both Zulu and English:


The illustrations are by Sylvia Baxter, and include both half-page and full-page illustrations, like these:



The other books by Savory that I've blogged about previously are: Congo Fireside TalesBantu Folk Tales from Southern Africa, and Lion Outwitted by Hare and Other African Tales.




So, the book of Zulu stories and all these other books by Phyllis Savory await you at Internet Archive, just a click away!


by Phyllis Savory






Sunday, August 29, 2021

Public Domain Art: Lang's Grey Fairy Book



Lang published 25 different African stories in his Fairy Book series, with illustrations by Henry Justice Ford; more about Ford.

In the Grey Fairy Book published in 1900, there are five different African folktales. There are no illustrations for The Jackal and the Spring, but the other stories do have illustrations: The Story of Dschemil and Dschemila, The Daughter of Buk Ettemsuch, Mohammed with the Magic Finger, and Udea and Her Seven Brothers. All four of the illustrated stories Lang translated from the same source: Märchen und Gedichte aus der Stadt Tripolis in Nordafrika (Fairy tales and Poems from the City of Tripoli in North Africa) by Hans von Stumme, published in 1898; you can find out more about Tripoli at Wikipedia.

See this Flickr album for larger file sizes. The images below have been resized to fit this blog; I have linked the titles of the stories below to where you can read them in the book.
























African Folktales at Internet Archive: Zimani's Drum / Lazy Sun

After a week of stories from Nigeria, I'm going to focus on southern African stories this week, starting with a pair of books by Melinda Lilly: Zimani's Drum: A Malawian Tale and Kwian and the Lazy Sun: A San Myth, both books just a click away at Internet Archive (along with some other wonderful books that Lilly has written). 



Lilly's source for Zimani's Drum is the story "The Blind Man and the Hunchback" from Rattray's Folklore Stories and Songs in Chinyanja (a book I'll be featuring later this week). Zimani is the blind man who travels with the help of his brother Cikungwa. You can read the source story here online. You can see how Lilly worked with some essential plot elements from the original story while also transforming it into more of a feel-good story for children. 

The San story comes from Bleek's book, Specimens of Bushman Folklore, and it is one of the stories told by Kabbo: "The Children Are Sent to Throw the Sleeping Sun into the Sky." I've blogged about Kabbo and Bleek's book here, and you can read that source story online. In this case, Lilly's changes to the story are much more dramatic, bringing the San mythological character Mantis into the story; you will find many stories about Mantis here in Bleek's book, and also in the book Mantis and His Friends.


The illustrations are by Charles Reasoner, and both his drawings of people and of animals are very lovely. Here are two pages of illustrations from the book about Zimani:



And here are two pages of illustrations from the book about the Sun:



You might also remember Lilly from a book I blogged about earlier, also illustrated by Reasoner: Wanyana and Matchmaker Frog: A Bagandan Tale.


These are lovely children's books and both have the added advantage of being based on public domain source material so that you can look and compare for yourself what story Lilly has told in these books and the stories that were recorded by Bleek and by Rattray over 100 years ago.