Once upon a time, there was a leopard. He had a huge walnut tree that was full of nuts. Stingy as he was, however, he forbade anyone to touch the nuts and threatened to kill them if they did so. The tortoise was also aware of the ban, but when he saw the ripe nuts,…

A long time ago, a young woman gave birth to a child armed with strings and arrows, as if fate had predestined him to become a hunter. When he grew up, he showed great skill in archery and in making snares and traps. Everyone admired him, and luck was on his side. One day a…

A man had two sons. Their names were Rafiki and Tambu. One day he decided to teach them a lesson. He called them early in the morning and sent them to a village some distance away. “Go and visit the people – he said – But be careful: along the way, you will occasionally pull…

As the sun sets over the stony plateau of Mexico, a beautiful white flower opens its corolla among the blade-like thorns of the Cereus Nycticalis: it is called the Princess of the Night. When the king of Michoacan sent out the town criers to the villages and districts, all the maidens came out from their…

At that time Viracocha, the creator God, looked down upon the earth. He saw it was bare, shrouded in impenetrable darkness, for daylight did not yet exist. Taguapac, his woman, and her children, the only human creatures, had found refuge under a rock in the heart of the Andes. They led a life of hardship,…

Vusi was an honest man and a hard worker. He had cleared a large piece of moorland and turned it into a beautiful fertile field. He had married Duduzile and a beautiful child was born, to whom they gave the name Thembelihle. For some years they lived happily. They wished to have a son, who…

There was a man who had an only son. When the man died, the son was left all alone in the world. There were not many possessions – just a cat and a dog, a small piece of land and some orange trees. The boy gave the dog to a neighbour and sold the land…

At that time, Prince Ulmac, ‘The One from the Water Palace’, who had ascended the throne in ‘Year Nine of the Rabbit’, reigned in Tollan. His kingdom enjoyed such prosperity that it even aroused the envy of the Rain Gods, whom one day challenged him to play a game of ball with them. The proud…

Why does the frog croak? Why are its eyes always bulging out of their sockets? And why does it live only in ponds? This story from the ethnic group of the Birrwa-Limba (Sierra Leone) will explain it all to us. The sun was setting and all the animals had gathered around the pond to drink.…

Kaya was the most beautiful girl in the village. All the boys courted her, each bringing her small gifts. There were so many invitations from her suitors that she never had a moment’s freedom. Rich in virtue too, Kaya was the pride of her parents. But she liked only one young man: the son of…

The world was a very pleasant place in which to live. All the animals were friends and, although they occasionally had disagreements, they would never think of fighting, or harming each other. Indeed, there was only one thing to be feared – and that was fire. Not the safe, warm fire that Man kept in…

It was a scorching dawn. Scattered across the vast grassy savannah beyond the rocky mountains, the villages seemed to bleach under the thick blanket of clay dust that accompanies the dry season. Birds were singing in the azure sky. On that day, a genie decided to make all butterflies disappear from the face of the…