Anansi And Nothing

Near Anansi’s miserable little hut there was a fine palace where lived a very rich man called Nothing. Nothing and Anansi proposed, one day, to go to the neighbouring town to get some wives. Accordingly, they set off together.

Nothing, being a rich man, wore a very fine velvet cloth, while Anansi had a ragged cotton one. While they were on their way Anansi persuaded Nothing to change clothes for a little while, promising to give back the fine velvet before they reached the town. He delayed doing this, however, first on one pretext, then on another – till they arrived at their destination.

Anansi, being dressed in such a fine garment, found no difficulty in getting as many wives as he wished. Poor Nothing, with his ragged and miserable cloth, was treated with great contempt. At first he could not get even one wife. At last, however, a woman took pity on him and gave him her daughter. The poor girl was laughed at very heartily by Anansi’s wives for choosing such a beggar as Nothing appeared to be. She wisely took no notice of their scorn.

The party set off for home. When they reached the cross-roads leading to their respective houses the women were astonished. The road leading to Anansi’s house was only half cleared. The one which led to Nothing’s palace was, of course, wide and well made. Not only so, but his servants had strewn it with beautiful skins and carpets, in preparation for his return. Servants were there, awaiting him, with fine clothes for himself and his wife. No one was waiting for Anansi.

Nothing’s wife was queen over the whole district and had everything her heart could desire. Anansi’s wives could not even get proper food; they had to live on unripe bananas with peppers. The wife of Nothing heard of her friends’ miserable state and invited them to a great feast in her palace. They came, and were so pleased with all they saw that they agreed to stay there. Accordingly, they refused to come back to Anansi’s hut.

He was very angry, and tried in many ways to kill Nothing, but without success. Finally, however, he persuaded some rat friends to dig a deep tunnel in front of Nothing’s door. When the hole was finished Anansi lined it with knives and broken bottles. He then smeared the steps of the palace with okro to make them very slippery, and withdrew to a little distance.

When he thought Nothing’s household was safely in bed and asleep, he called to Nothing to come out to the courtyard and see something. Nothing’s wife, however, dissuaded him from going. Anansi tried again and again, and each time she bade her husband not to listen. At last Nothing determined to go and see this thing. As he placed his foot on the first step, of course he slipped, and down he fell into the hole. The noise alarmed the household. Lights were fetched and Nothing was found in the ditch, so much wounded by the knives that he soon died. His wife was terribly grieved at his untimely death. She boiled many yams, mashed them, and took a great dishful of them round the district. To every child she met she gave some, so that the child might help her to cry for her husband. This is why, if you find a child crying and ask the cause, you will often be told he is “crying for nothing.”

Moral

Anansi’s greed transforms ‘Nothing’ into catastrophe. When we pursue wealth without measure or wisdom, we lose everything. The clever spider learns that cunning without conscience destroys the cunning creature.

Historical & Cultural Context

African folk tales, drawn from oral traditions across the Akan, Zulu, Yoruba and Swahili peoples among many others, blend trickster figures (especially Anansi the spider) with creation myths, moral parables and lessons about community, cunning and kinship.

Anansi the spider ranks among Africa’s most iconic trickster figures, originating in Akan oral traditions and later documented across the African diaspora. Paul Radin’s ‘African Folktales and Sculpture’ (1952) emphasizes Anansi’s dual nature: cunning hero and moral cautionary figure. The ‘Nothing’ motif represents abstract consequences, a sophisticated philosophical device in Akan pedagogy. Ashanti raconteurs used such tales to teach children about property, ambition, and social responsibility, embedding complex ethics within deceptively simple narratives.

Reflection & Discussion

1. What does ‘Nothing’ symbolize in Anansi’s world, and why does it defeat him when cleverness fails?
2. Can you think of modern examples where greed backfires, and what Anansi’s fate teaches about balance?
3. How is Anansi different from a simple villain? What makes his downfall instructive rather than just punishment?

Did You Know?

• Anansi the Spider is one of the most beloved trickster characters in West African folklore.
• West African folk tales were carried across the Atlantic during the slave trade and influenced American folklore traditions.
• Griots, traditional West African storytellers, memorize hundreds of tales and pass them down through generations.

What This Tale Teaches Us Today

Old stories keep their power because their lessons never stop being useful. Here is how this one still applies:

• The natural world is always a character in African tales – a reminder that modern environmental ethics have deep traditional roots.
• Trickster tales teach children to notice deception and respond without becoming deceivers themselves.
• Community wisdom matters more than individual cleverness. African tales consistently celebrate collective knowledge.

Why This Story Still Matters

Anansi And Nothing joins a vast and layered African folk tradition that has survived colonialism, slavery, and displacement. African storytelling is one of humanity’s great cultural achievements – a tradition that preserved history, ethics, and community identity without the help of written records. Modern readers who engage with African folk tales find more than entertainment; they find a whole way of thinking about community, nature, and virtue. As African diaspora communities continue to share these stories worldwide, the tales find new life in new languages and continents – proof that good stories, like good values, refuse to stay silenced.

Cultural Context and Continuing Influence

Folk tales like this one survived for hundreds of years through oral storytelling before any scholar thought to write them down. Grandparents told them to grandchildren, travelers traded them along roads and rivers, and mothers repeated them to babies who would one day repeat them to their own children. Each small retelling sharpened the story, discarded unnecessary parts, and polished the essential lesson. That long process of refinement is why a good folk tale feels so weighty – it has been shaped by thousands of listeners across generations, each contributing something small to the story we read today.

Modern readers sometimes wonder whether folk tales are still relevant in an age of apps and smartphones. The answer is yes, perhaps more than ever. The technology changes, but the underlying questions – about kindness, courage, loyalty, greed, family, fear, love – do not. These are the same questions that children asked around a fire in ancient India, around a hearth in medieval Ireland, around a campfire in 19th-century Korea. And they are the same questions children ask their parents today, just phrased differently. That is why a family that reads folk tales together is doing real cultural and emotional work, not simply entertaining itself.

Reading Folk Tales With Children

Reading folk tales aloud to children is one of the oldest and most effective forms of moral education. Unlike a lecture or a rule, a story slides past a child’s natural resistance and plants its lesson in the imagination, where it quietly grows. Years later, when the child meets a real situation that resembles the story – a bully at school, a dishonest coworker, a moment of temptation – the old tale rises to the surface of memory and offers guidance. That is why parents and teachers across every culture have trusted stories to do the work of raising good humans, long before formal schools or textbooks existed.

When reading this story with a young listener, try pausing at key moments and asking what the child thinks will happen next. Let them guess, even if they are wrong. That small act of prediction turns a passive listener into an active thinker. After the story ends, a simple open question – “What would you have done?” or “Who do you think was the smartest character?” – invites the child to connect the tale to their own life. Those conversations are where real learning happens, not during the reading itself but in the quiet moments that follow.

Older children and teenagers sometimes think they have outgrown folk tales. In reality, the best tales only deepen with age. A ten-year-old hears the surface plot; a fifteen-year-old notices the irony; a twenty-year-old sees the economic and political pressures on the characters; a forty-year-old understands the parents in the story for the first time. A good folk tale is a gift that keeps unfolding for decades. Families who read and reread the same stories across the years discover this naturally, and pass the discovery down.

A Final Word

Every folk tale carries within it the accumulated judgment of thousands of listeners across many generations. When a story has been told for a thousand years and still moves children today, that is not an accident. It is proof that the story is saying something true about the human condition. The wiser the listener, the more they see in a tale they have heard a hundred times before. Reading these stories slowly, out loud, with children beside us, we are joining the longest conversation our species has ever had with itself. Every tale we share is a quiet vote for patience, for meaning, and for the old idea that a good story is one of the finest things one generation can hand down to the next.

We hope this telling gave you something worth carrying into your day – a small lesson, a useful image, a question to ask your child at dinner. Folk tales do their best work in the hours and years after the reading ends, quietly shaping how we see the world and each other. Thank you for spending time with this story, and for keeping the old tradition of careful listening and thoughtful retelling alive.