Anansi the Spider

Episode • Aug 19 • 38m

A creator god, a trickster folk hero, a wily spider and a heroic symbol of resistance, Anansi is a fascinating figure within West African folklore. This episode contains both an original folkloric story and a modern depiction of Anansi from our Myths, Gods & Immortals series.

Featuring:

‘The Secrets of Jamestown Lighthouse’ by Benjamin Cyril Arthur (01.15), read by Cheryl S. Ntumy. In this story we’ve got a gang of kids who are sneaking around, sticking their noses into things that are way beyond them, but who can resist breaking the rules when there’s an adventure at stake? Borrowed from ‘Anansi’ in our Myths, Gods & Immortals series.

‘How Anansi Became a Spider’ from the Dagomba people of West Africa (30.25), read by Essay Kidane. Though also featuring the character of Anansi this is a traditionally told folkloric narrative. We found this morality tale in our book ‘African Myths and Tales’.

Biographies:

Benjamin Cyril Arthur is a prolific writer who holds a degree in English and Linguistics. He is a winner of the 2020 Samira Bawumia literary prize in Ghana. His short stories have been published by Tampered Press, Lunaris Review, Ama Atta Aidoo Centre for Creative Writing, Lọúnlọún etc. When not writing, Benjamin works as an amateur photographer.

‘How Anansi Became a Spider’ was sourced from the Dagomba people in West Africa. The stories in African Myths and Tales come from a range of sources, mostly contemporaneous with colonial times, written by Europeans but often based on their first-hand accounts of tales narrated to them by natives. More details can be found inside African Myths and Tales.

Cheryl S. Ntumy is a Ghanaian writer of speculative fiction and has appeared in FIYAH Literary Magazine, Apex Magazine and World Literature Today. She's also been shortlisted for the Nommo Award for African speculative fiction, the Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize and the Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship.

This episode was hosted by Bea.

‘How Anansi Became a Spider’ appeared in African Myths and Tales (Flame Tree Publishing, 2019).

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Music is an extract of Sunbeams by Allen Stroud, from his Fractal Series album, licensed courtesy of fpl-digital 2025.

This podcast is hosted and sometimes narrated by Beatrix Ambery (also audio editor), Olivia Jackson (also podcast coordinator) and Nick Wells (also producer).

Chosen from hundreds of wonderful tales, short stories such as these are selected by our short window open submission process, giving opportunities to writers of all levels of experience, culture and location. Look out for our submission announcements, and see the full list here: flametreepublishing.com/gothic-fantasy-book-series-list.html

Our full range of thematic short stories, epic tales, mythology and folklore titles are available at all good bookstores, online and in retail, and at flametreepublishing.com

Flame Tree Publishing, Independent Publisher of the Year 2024, British Fantasy Society. Beautiful Books, Timeless Storytelling, Fresh Perspectives.

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