Anansi and Nothing

Beside Anansi’s poor little hut stood a fine palace, and in it lived a very rich man named Nothing. One day the two neighbours agreed to travel to the next town together to find wives, and off they set.

Because he was wealthy, Nothing was wrapped in a beautiful velvet cloth. Anansi’s cloth was ragged cotton. As they walked, Anansi coaxed Nothing into trading cloths for a short while, promising faithfully to give the velvet back before they reached the town. But each time the moment came he found a reason to wait—first one excuse, then another—and so they arrived with Anansi still dressed in velvet.

In such a splendid garment Anansi easily won as many wives as he wanted. Poor Nothing, in his shabby cotton, was treated with contempt, and at first he could not get even one wife. At last a woman felt sorry for him and gave him her daughter. Anansi’s wives laughed heartily at the girl for choosing a man who looked like a beggar. She wisely paid them no attention.

The whole party started home. When they came to the place where the road split toward the two houses, the women stared in surprise. The way to Anansi’s house was only half cleared. The way to Nothing’s palace was wide and well made, and his servants had spread it with handsome skins and carpets to welcome him back. They were waiting there with fine clothes for Nothing and his bride. No one was waiting for Anansi.

Nothing’s wife became queen over the whole district and had everything she could wish for. Anansi’s wives could not even get proper food; they had to live on unripe bananas with peppers. When Nothing’s wife heard how miserable her friends were, she invited them to a great feast at her palace. They came, liked everything they saw, and agreed to stay. They refused to return to Anansi’s hut.

Anansi was very angry. He tried many times to kill Nothing, but never succeeded. At last he talked some rats he was friendly with into digging a deep tunnel just outside Nothing’s door. When the hole was ready he lined it with knives and broken bottles. Then he rubbed the palace steps with okro to make them slippery, and went off a little way to wait.

When he thought everyone in the palace was asleep, he called to Nothing to come out into the courtyard and see something. Nothing’s wife talked him out of going. Anansi called again and again, and every time she told her husband not to listen. In the end Nothing decided to go and look. As soon as he put his foot on the first step he slipped, and down he went into the hole.

The noise woke the household. Lights were brought, and Nothing was found in the ditch, so badly cut by the knives that he died soon afterward.

His wife grieved terribly. She boiled a great many yams, mashed them, and carried a large dish of them all through the district. She gave some to every child she met, so that the child would help her cry for her husband. That is why, if you find a child crying and ask the reason, you are often told he is “crying for nothing.”

About this tale

“Anansi and Nothing” is the third tale in Barker and Sinclair’s West African Folk-Tales (1917). It shows Anansi at his worst: the borrowed cloth and broken promise lead on to jealousy and finally to murder, and the tale closes on an English play on words, “crying for nothing.”

Barker admits in his introduction that the stories were retold to reach a wider public, and he hoped the full original material would one day be published for students of folklore.

Read the original: West African Folk-Tales (1917) on Project Gutenberg

Best for older readers with an adult — includes calculated murder with knives and broken glass, deception in marriage and bereavement.

Reading the story closely

The borrowed velvet separates appearance from ownership. Nothing loses social approval when he lends it, while Anansi receives approval he has not earned. At home, food and care reveal what the clothes concealed. Yet the revelation does not produce justice: Nothing’s generosity does not protect him from murder, and Anansi is not shown being punished.

Track the uses of “Nothing”: first a person’s name, then the last phrase that seems to dismiss a child’s tears. The wordplay works because the widow’s grief is real within the story. Read the final sentence both ways and discuss why saying someone cries “for nothing” can miss a reason we do not know.

Questions to ask

• How did Anansi get the velvet cloth, and did he keep his promise?
• Why did Anansi’s wives choose to stay at Nothing’s palace?
• Why do people say a child is “crying for nothing,” according to the story?

Related stories

• How We Got the Name ‘Spider Tales’ — why stories are named after Anansi
• Why the Lizard Continually Moves His Head Up and Down — another Anansi plot ending in cruel revenge
• Anansi the Blind Fisherman — Anansi and his helpers in a tale of insults and deadly retaliation