These stories are rather different. They are not stories which one person has written – they are stories which have been handed down from old people to young people over many, many years. Nobody knows who first told them; all we know is that they have been told for a very long time indeed.
The stories in this book are all from two countries in Africa – Zimbabwe and Botswana. I collected some of them by talking to people and asking them to tell me the stories – others were collected by other people who did the asking for me. Then I retold them in my own words, adding some descriptions to make the stories a little bit more vivid for those readers who do not know what Africa is like.
It is not easy to forget these stories – they remain in the mind for a long time after we have come to their end. Why is this? I think that it is because they seem so strange to us when we first encounter them. They are about animals who can talk. They are about very peculiar things that happen. In the real world a hawk would not be a friend of a hen, and in the real world trees do not suddenly change into something quite different. But all this happens in these stories.
They are not just stories of magical events, though. Folktales are often meant to say something about how we should behave towards other people, and you will see that message in many of these stories. They show that selfish people will be caught out sooner or later. They show that we must help those around us. They also warn us to beware of tricksters.
When you have finished reading these stories, I hope that you may have found out something about Africa. Modern Africa, of course, is not like the Africa in these stories, but many of the traditions of the past still remain – and many of the songs and stories too. The stories might help you to understand at least some of that traditional African culture.
Most of all, though, the stories are meant to be fun, and that, I hope, is what people will have when they read them.
Alexander McCall Smith
Edinburgh 2006
