The Annotated African American Folktales

by Henry Louis Gates

  THE BOY AND THE GHOST

  Southern Workman 27 (1897), 57

  THE BOY AND THE GHOST

  Once there was a very rich family of people and they all died. Everybody was afraid to go there. Finally someone set up a sign board which said “Anyone who will go to this house and stay over night can have the house and all that is in it.”

  A poor boy came along and read it. “I will go,” he said, and he went at sunset. He found all he wanted and went to work to cook his supper. Just as he was ready to eat it he heard a voice from the top of the chimney. He looked up and saw a leg. The leg said, “I am going to drop.” “I don’t keer,” said the boy, “jes’ so’s you don’ drap in my soup.”

  The leg jumped down on a chair, and another leg came and said, “I am going to drop.” “I don’t keer,” said the boy, “jes’ so’s you don’ drap in my soup.”

  The leg jumped down on a chair, and another leg came and said, “I am going to drop.” “I don’t keer,” said the boy, “so you don’ drap in my soup.” One after another all the members of a man came down in this way.

  The little boy said, “Will you have some supper? Will you have some supper?” They gave him no answer. “Oh,” said the little boy, “I save my supper and manners too.” He ate his supper and made up his bed. “Will you have some bedroom? Will you have some bedroom?” said the little boy. No answer. “Oh,” said the little boy, “I save my bedroom and my manners too,” and he went to bed.

  Soon after he went to bed, the legs pulled him under the house and showed him a chest of money. The little boy grew rich and married.

  MR. CLAYTOR’S STORY AND MRS. SPENNIE’S STORY

  Southern Workman 23 (1894), 179–80

  Both raconteurs remind their audiences that there is more to folklore than animal stories. A note appended to the two tales points out that it is impossible to reproduce the “dialect and intonations” that made the narratives “unique specimens.”

  MR. CLAYTOR’S STORY

  “As I have been sitting here listening to these other stories, quite a collection of stories have come back to me that I had once known and almost forgotten. As you have already had stories concerning animals you will be interested, I think, in one of a different nature.

  “I remember hearing my mother tell the story of a man who seemed to be in a bad way. Once upon a time he went out hunting. While he was out hunting some one invited him into his house.

  “So he went with that person, who seemed in some way unnatural, and when he got to the place it didn’t seem like a real place, but when he got there this strange person showed him everything in the house, there were many things and lots of money.

  “The man had told him he would give him money if he would go to his home. So he gave him some money, and when he had spent it he felt in his pocket, and found he had the same money.

  “The spirit said before he left ‘Don’t you want to live with me?’ The man said, ‘no, not now.’ ‘Would you like to come back in seven years from to-day?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Well I think you must come in seven years.’

  “After he got home he half forgot about it and yet it seemed as if he had a feeling that he still owed something to that man. At the end of seven years, this boy said to his mother, ‘don’t you see those large cats?’ ‘No; I don’t see them,’ his mother said, ‘make them go away!’

  “ ‘They are just as black as a coal but their eyes sparkle like fire! Can’t you drive them out and make them go away?’ he said. But his mother couldn’t see them. Finally he said ‘Don’t you remember I promised a man I would go with him after seven years, now he is going to take me?’ Then he screamed and said the cats had jumped on him. The people in the room could see where the cats scratched him but couldn’t see the cats. Finally he went off no one knew where he had gone, but they thought the devil got him.”

  The next story teller was Mrs. Spennie of the Hampton Folk-Lore Society.

  MRS. SPENNIE’S STORY

  There have been so many animal stories that I will tell you one about an old man who was very disfigured and who had all kinds of marks on his face. Once we children asked him to tell us why he was so ugly. “None of your business,” he said at first, but after awhile he called us to him and said, “I tell you children what made me so ugly. Once on a time long ago, I was a mighty bad boy. I remember one night when I was livin’ in de country I went to town. I had mighty good time, as I allus did and was late gittin’ home. It was awful late, de road was dark and lonely an’ I was a leedle scared, but I had to be home early in de mornin’ to work. I knowed men’s sperits walk round about that time an’ hour. I felt a little uneasy as if things warent jes rite. Pretty soon I stumbled around something small. I looked around and saw a little cat. I swore at it and kicked it. Then that cat got mad and in a minute it grew to be as big as a dozen cats. Children, ye better believe me! I never seed anything to grow quite so fast as that thing did in all my life. I didn’t think to ask ‘In de name of the Father, Son an’ Holy Ghos’ wa’t de yer want?’ but I went to cussin at it jess as hard as I could; dat made de thing madder an’ it began to grow bigger still. I began to feel pretty scared an’ as I turned to cut an’ run, dat thing got me down and broke dis arm, and broke dis leg, an’ made dis yer mark yee an’ scratched my face an’ when I got home in de mornin’ my ole master said I’d had a pretty big frolic.

  “Now, I tells yur chillen, if yes ever out at night an’ meets any strange thing be sure to say, ‘In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghos’, what you want,’ else you get disfigured jest as I is.”

  PLAYING GODFATHER, FLOWER OF DEW, AND SOUL OR SOLE

  Journal of American Folklore 35 (1922), 325–27

  Alice Bacon and Elsie Clews Parsons contributed the story about Sister Weasel, which had been told to them by Gladys Stewart from Phoebus, Virginia. The “Flower of Dew,” recorded by Alice Bacon, closely resembles “Jorinde and Joringel,” a tale in the Brothers Grimm collection. And “Soul or Sole,” written down by William Herbert, is a reminder of how word play is an important feature of folklore

  PLAYING GODFATHER

  (Version b)

  One day Bro’ ’Possum gathered a large kittle of pease and put them in a kittle to cook. In the meantime he ask’ Sister Weasel to come over and help him work in the garden and have dinner with him. Sister Weasel came; and, as she couldn’t leave her three little babies home, she brought them along, too.

  Bro’ ’Possum had told Sister Weasel abou’ the pease he had on cooking; and the whole time she was working, she was thinking of how she could get into the house to eat them befo’ Bro’ ’Possum did. At last the thought came to her mind that she would tell Bro’ ’Possum to let her go into the house to name one of her babies. When she thought the pease were done, she said, “Bro’ ’Possum, got to go into de house to name one ob my babies. Won’t be gone long.”—“All right, Sis’ Weasel! Don’t stay long!”

  Sister Weasel went into the house, and found the pease nice and done. So she ate the top off and ran back to work. “What did you name your baby, Sister Weasel?” asked Bro’ ’Possum. “Top-Off,” answered Sister Weasel, working all the time. In a few minutes Sister Weasel felt hungry again; and she said to Bro’ ’Possum, “Bro’ ’Possum, I got go in and name my second baby,”—“All right, Sister Weasel! but don’t stay long!” said Bro’ ’Possum.

  Sister Weasel went in this time and ate half of the pease. This time, when she came out, Bro’ ’Possum asked, “Well, Sister Weasel, what did you name this one?”—“Half-Gone,” said Sister Weasel, and away she went chopping in the garden. Pretty soon she felt hungry again; for, once she had tasted those pease, she couldn’t stop until she had eaten them. So she said, “Bro’ ’Possum, let me go in now and name my last baby, and I won’t bother you any more.” Bro’ ’Possum gave his consent. This time Sister Weasel cleaned the kettle, and came running out agin. “What did you name this baby, Sister Weasel?” asked Bro’ ’Possum. “All-Gone,” said Siste
r Weasel, and went hard at her work. Pretty soon Bro’ ’Possum noticed that Sister Weasel was getting sluggish on the job, and he thought that she was hungry. So he said, “Come, Sister Weasel, let’s eat the kittle of pease, and we will feel more like working.”—“All right!” said Sister Weasel. When Bro’ ’Possum went into the house and found that the pease had gone, he became very angry, and told Sister Wease1 that she had eaten all his pease. “Now, Bro’ ’Possum, I haven’t eaten your pease,” said Sister Weasel. “You have eaten my pease, Sister Weasel, and I am going to eat you for my dinner.” When Sister Weasel heard this, she became frightened, for she well knew that Bro’ ’Possum would eat her up with little trouble. But what was she to do? Bro’ ’Possum’s garden, which she loved dearly, was a long ways from the house, but one with a keen eye could see all over the garden. Sister Weasel knew that Bro’ ’Possum could not do this, on account of his poor sight. So she said, “O Bro’ ’Possum! just look how the Wren children are stealing your crop!” At this Bro’ ’Possum forgot all about his pease, an’ ran down to his garden. In the mean time Sister Weasel grabbed her babies and ran as fast as she could to the woods and hid. After she got herself hidden, she laughed to herself of how she had fooled Bro’ ’Possum.

  Written by GLADYS STEWART OF PHOEBUS.

  FLOWER OF DEW

  Once there was an old woman who staid in the wood. She was a witch. A man and his young wife were out in the woods. The old witch saw the young woman, and she changed her to a nightingale. The man wept a great deal, and he began to seek some way to get his wife. He was out walking, and he found a crimson flower with dew in the middle. He pulled the flower and went to the witch’s house, and went to the cage of his wife; and she came out, and they went home.

  Recorded by A. M. BACON.

  SOUL OR SOLE

  Once upon a time there lived a girl. She wanted to know any kind of dance, and sing any kind of song. One day while she was alone, a man stood before her. He said, “You are always thinking about dancing and singing.” He said, “If you want to, I will make you so as long as you want to. You must give your soul to my master when your time is up.”—“I should like to be with him for twenty-eight years,” she said. The time rolled by quickly. When her time was up, she heard a loud noise, saying, “I am coming! I am coming! I am coming after you! According to your word, I am coming after you!” The master had come after her soul. She did not want to give him her real soul. She took up an old shoe-sole and threw it at him. The ugly, man-like thing did not know the difference, and he was contented.

  Written by WILLIAM HERBERT.

  This cover illustration by Albert Alex Smith shows a young girl welcomed into “Brownies Land,” a fantastical world of gnomes, fairies, sprites, and outsized plant life that served as a visual metaphor for the magazine’s content.

  PART VIII

  FOLKTALES FROM THE BROWNIES’ BOOK

  The Brownies’ Book was a monthly magazine that ran from January 1920 until December 1921. It was designed for “the children of the sun,” and intended for “all children, but especially for ours.” The dedication in the first issue read:

  To Children, who with eager look

  Scanned vainly library shelf and nook,

  For History or Song or Story

  That told of Colored Peoples’ glory,-

  We dedicate THE BROWNIES’ BOOK.

  Edited by W. E. B. Du Bois, with assistance from Augustus Granville Dill and Jessie Fauset, the magazine published a rich assemblage of folktales, poetry, stories, games, puzzles, essays, letters, biographies, and photographs for young readers, with a monthly column from Du Bois, “As the Crow flies.” It aimed to be “a thing of Joy and Beauty, dealing in Happiness, Laughter and Emulation” for children from the ages of six to sixteen.

  The Brownies’ Book built on proposals made in an NAACP column written by Carrie W. Clifford and entitled “Our Children.” Clifford looked both to the present and past as a source of content. On the one hand, she wanted to publish “stories, drawings, charades, puzzles, etc.” from children and grownups, but she was equally invested in the notion of gathering and preserving “folk-tales of the race” in order to “awaken in the children race consciousness and race pride” (Clifford 1917, 306–7).

  W. E. B. Du Bois in the editorial office of The Crisis, New York, ca. 1920

  What Du Bois wanted above all was a showcase for what he called the “Talented Tenth” (the group of African Americans most gifted and best positioned to serve in leadership positions). The Brownies’ Book sought to promote racial pride and excellence in education as well as to teach “Universal Love and Brotherhood for all little folk—black and brown and yellow and white.” It soon became a venue for publishing the work of children who aspired to be writers. Langston Hughes was a contributor, publishing both fiction and nonfiction in the magazine. The Brownies’ Book recruited about five thousand subscribers, not enough to enable it to remain financially viable, and the magazine was forced to shut down in 1921.

  The front covers of The Brownies’ Book featured images of children with whom readers could identify. The cover of the first issue featured a portrait of a girl in a playful pose taken by Cornelius Marion Battey, head of the Photographic Division at the Tuskegee Institute. Battey’s portraits of black activists, scholars, and performers often appeared on the covers of The Crisis.

  W. E. B. Du Bois identified the intended audience for The Brownies’ Book on the inside front cover of the first issue: “Designed for all children, but especially for ours.”

  The April 1921 Brownies’ Book cover is an artistic photographic double portrait of Yvette Keelan, granddaughter of lecturer and activist Mary Burnett Talbert. Talbert hosted the first meeting of the Niagara movement, forerunner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, in her Buffalo, New York, home in 1905.

  For the November 1920 issue, illustrator Laura Wheeler Waring depicted a lively scene of young people gathering fuel for a celebratory Election Day bonfire.

  Cornelius Marion Battey photographed this scene of Uncle Remus posing with a young boy, which appeared as the frontispiece in the November 1920 issue of The Brownies’ Book. The camera in the boy’s hand suggests an unexpected relationship between the two figures: the boy as photographer, Uncle Remus as his subject.

  An illustration by Albert Alex Smith for an Anansi tale in The Brownies’ Book, March 1920.

  THE STORY OF “CREASUS”

  Told by Katie Jones Harvell

  Submitted by a reader of The Brownies’ Book, this tale resonates with European folklore, with its many tales about ogres being outwitted by numbskulls and ne’er-do-wells. Uncle Parker bears a faint resemblance to Uncle Remus, with his expansive narrative tone and willingness to tell tales in exchange for a gourd of water and the promise of cake. But he is also a more erudite figure, one familiar with mythical and biblical figures, with a repertoire of scary stories as well.

  Grandfather was in the yard under a large shade tree, with the back of his old, leather-bottomed chair leaning against the trunk.

  “Hello, Uncle Parker,” the boys yelled as they came up.

  “Howdy, boys, howdy. What does you want today?”

  “These boys been tellin’ stories,” said Frank. “But I tell ’em you’re the only one can tell tales.”

  “That’s right, tell us a sho’ ’nough tale, Uncle Parker,” said Bob.

  “Yes, tell us a tale,” they all said as they drew closer to Uncle Parker.