ABC 9. Thunder and Lightning

For the first Anansi Book Club book in July (here's the July calendar), it's another book written and illsutrated by Ashley Bryan and it's just a click away at the Internet Archive... The Story of Lightning and Thunder. Enjoy, and share your thoughts at Twitter if you are so inclined; our hashtag is #AnansiBookClub.

To get started, here's one of the illustrations from the book; you'll recognize Bryan's style right away. Here's the king talking with the ram who is a major character in the story:

And in the opening words of the story, you'll recognize Bryan's distinctive verbal style too, uh-huh!

A long time ago, I mean a long, long time ago, if you wanted to pat Lightning or chat with Thunder, you could do it. Uh-huh, you could! Thunder was a mother sheep, and Lightning was her son, a ram.

You can also listen for Bryan's use of rhyme in his prose, as here when the mother sheep is giving her son the ram some advice:

"Use your head, Son," Ma Sheep Thunder said. "If things don't work out one way, try another. Hear what I say! I'm your mother."

To get a sense of the true magic that is Ashley Bryan, here's a video about him, and his life: Maine Arts Stories - Featuring: Ashley Bryan.

Bryan's source for the story is a collection of stories from Nigeria by Elphinstone Dayrell: Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria.

Dayrell was a colonial administrator in Nigeria in the early 20th century, and he published this book in 1910; here is his story of Thunder and Lightning:

In the olden days the thunder and lightning lived on the earth amongst all the other people, but the king made them live at the far end of the town, as far as possible from other people's houses.

The thunder was an old mother sheep, and the lightning was her son, a ram. Whenever the ram got angry he used to go about and burn houses and knock down trees; he even did damage on the farms, and sometimes killed people. Whenever the lightning did these things, his mother used to call out to him in a very loud voice to stop and not to do any more damage; but the lightning did not care in the least for what his mother said, and when he was in a bad temper used to do a very large amount of damage. At last the people could not stand it any longer, and complained to the king.

So the king made a special order that the sheep and her son, the ram, should leave the town and live in the far bush. This did not do much good, as when the ram got angry he still burnt the forest, and the flames sometimes spread to the farms and consumed them.

So the people complained again, and the king banished both the lightning and the thunder from the earth and made them live in the sky, where they could not cause so much destruction. Ever since, when the lightning is angry, he commits damage as before, but you can hear his mother, the thunder, rebuking him and telling him to stop. Sometimes, however, when the mother has gone away some distance from her naughty son, you can still see that he is angry and is doing damage, but his mother's voice cannot be heard.

For another modern children's version of the story, here's another one you can read at the Internet Archive: How and Why Stories: World Tales Kids Can Read and Tell by Martha Hamilton and Mitch Weiss.

A fun thing about this book is that it includes tips for children on how to perform the story themselves, using their voices and gestures to help bring the story to life. The illustrations are by Carol Lyon; here's her illustration for the story of the ram and his mother:

For yet another version of this story, I can offer this 100-word version from one of my books of "tiny tales" from Africa: "The Ram and His Mother" in Tiny Tales from Africa: The Animals 1. (A free book to download in the standard ebook formats!)

I thought you might also enjoy two other African legends about thunder; these are both 100-word stories from the Tiny Tales from Africa; the first story is from Volume 1, and the second story is from Volume 2:

I hope you've enjoyed Ashley Bryan's book and these additional notes... and remember: all you have to do is click, borrow the book, read and enjoy!

. The Story of Lightning and Thunder

by Ashley Bryan