A very long time ago, there lived a spider and his wife in a village. The spider was called Anansi. Though Anansi’s wife was an excellent cook, nevertheless he loved tasting food cooked by others in the village.
One day, while his wife was busy ......
A very long time ago, there lived a spider and his wife in a village. The spider was called Anansi. Though Anansi’s wife was an excellent cook, nevertheless he loved tasting food cooked by others in the village.
One day, while his wife was busy cooking lunch, he went out for a walk. On his way he visited the rabbit’s house. “Oh,the greens in your pot look amazing!” Anansi said staring into the pot in which the rabbit was cooking his food. “Oh, they are almost done; if you wait for a while you can have lunch with me,” the rabbit said. Anansi knew that if he stayed back the rabbit would ask him to help out in the house work. Anansi thought for a while and said, “Actually, I have some work to finish, but I can come back for lunch. I can spin a web and tie one end of it to your pot and the other to one of my legs. As soon as the food is cooked, you can tug on my web and I will come back immediately.” The rabbit liked the idea and agreed to do so.
Anansi started walking again. He could smell the aroma of deliciously cooked beans. “Ah, I can smell beans. They must taste lovely,” Anansi said while stopping at the monkey’s place. The monkey welcomed Anansi and said, “Please come and have some; they will be done in a minute or two.” “Oh thank you, Father Monkey. I will come back soon,” Anansi replied and suggested that he should tie one end of his web to the beans pot and one end around his leg. The monkey agreed to give him a tug. Anansi started walking again.
“Oh,this is the most amazing sweet potato that I have ever smelled! I can also smell honey!” Anansi exclaimed. The hog who was cooking the potatoes offered him some. Anansi suggested the same idea to him and he too agreed to it.
Anansi visited a few more places and, by the time he reached the river, he had one web tied to each of his eight legs.
Anansi was thinking about all the food that he was about to eat when suddenly he felt a tug on one of his legs. “This must be the rabbit,” Anansi said and just when he was about to leave, he felt another tug, and then another one. By now he was being pulled from four different directions. Soon, one by one,h is other four legs also started feeling the pressure of the pulls. The pull continued and he felt the stretch on all his eight legs. The animals continued to pull and Anansi’s legs started stretching, becoming thinner and thinner. Anansi jumped into the river to save himself from the pain. After all the webs were washed out, he slowly climbed out of the river.
“Oh God,this was certainly not a great idea,” Anansi said. Since that day, the spider has had eight thin legs.
Anansi, however, did not manage to get any food that day.
