Abstract
THIS is a popularised version of a series of folktales collected by Captain A. J. N. Tremearne, and published, with much useful information on the ethnology and customs of the Hausas, in the Proceedings of various societies. The tales add little to our knowledge of the manners of the people. Nearly all of them are based upon the theme of the transformation of men into animals andvice-versa, and there is little of the fairy element. The hero of many of the tales is Spider, who, like the fox of European and Chinese folk-lore and the jackal in India, is the type of the successful rogue. He is appointed king of the beasts, and in various ways swindles the elephant, rhinoceros, and hyaena. He marries a Hausa girl and has children, whom he shelters and dresses with his webs. His rival is the billy-goat, who plays tricks on the lion. In its present form, without notes or references from other folklore sources, the book is of little scientific value; but its quaint and humorous incidents of animal life will doubtless be fully appreciated in the nursery.
Fables and Fairy Tales for Little Folk; or, Uncle Remus in Hausaland.
By Mary Newman Tremearne. First series. Pp. iv + 135. (Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons, Ltd.; London: Simpkin, Marshall and Co., Ltd., 1910.) Price 2s. 6d. net.
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Fables and Fairy Tales for Little Folk; or, Uncle Remus in Hausaland.. Nature 86, 109 (1911). https://doi.org/10.1038/086109c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/086109c0