Tricksters. Folktales from Liberia

In yesterday's post I shared some stories from Liberia where the tiny antelope trickster was name "Nemo," and today I wanted to share more stories from Liberia, this time about "Nymo," a variant spelling of the same name for the royal antelope. This is an article that appeared in the Journal of American Folklore: "Folktales from Liberia" by Richard C. Bundy.

Richard Bundy was an American diplomat in the Legation of the United States at Monrovia,

Liberia, and he shared these abstracts of folktales he had collected with the editors of the journal. Of the 43 stories, 12 are about Nymo, but Bundy never identifies the trickster as being the royal antelope. It makes you wonder if this was just an editorial oversight in the preparation of the article for publication (the editorial notes comes from ECP, who would be Elsie Clews Parsons), or whether Mr. Bundy himself was not sure just what kind of animal Nymo was. Thanks to George Schwab's book (see yesterday's post), I am confident that Nymo is indeed the royal antelope, and you can enjoy his trickster adventures in the dozen stories that Bundy has reported here!

Folktales from Liberia

by Richard C. Bundy

in The Journal of American Folklore