Gallery > Spider and Squirrel ONCE upon a time there lived a squirrel who was a very fine farmer. In those days every animal had a large plot of land on which he grew his crops, and at the time when this story begins, Squirrel had a fine big field of guinea corn. Now since Squirrel was such an adept at climbing trees and leaping from branch to branch, he never had to make a path to his plot of land. He simply chose a likely piece of bush and no matter how far it was from the road, he could always reach it through the tops of the trees. Squirrel was delighted with this particular field. The soil was so rich that his guinea corn promised to be the best in the neighbourhood and he was rightly proud of the results of his labour. One day when Squirrel's corn was almost ready for harvesting, Spider was out hunting in that part of the country and came across the field full of the finest-looking guinea corn he had ever seen. 'I wonder whose field this is?' said Spider to himself, as he walked round and round the field looking for the path that he hoped would lead him to the owner's house. But, of course, he could not find one. 'Well, this is a strange thing. How can anybody have a field with no path to it? I must look into this and see if I can profit by it.' All the way back to his home and family, Spider considered how he could convince other people that the field belonged to him, and that evening after supper he had an idea. 'Tomorrow,' he said to his family, who were clustered around him, 'you must all come with me to a place I have discovered, and if you work hard for only one day, then you will be rewarded with a whole field of corn for which anyone else would need to work for months.' He explained to his family what he wanted them to do, and very early the next day Spider and his children were at work with their hoes making a path through the bush leading to Squirrel' s farm. When this was done the crafty spiders broke pieces of pottery and scattered them along the path, so that it would appear that they had dropped them over a period of several weeks as they went daily to hoe and weed. Then, without a word to poor Squirrel, the spider family began to cut down the corn and take it home with them. Each morning they came back for a little more and spent the rest of the day eating and resting. Squirrel soon discovered that he was being robbed, and one morning he hid himself in the trees, waiting to see who was stealing his corn. Along came Spider and his family and no sooner had they begun to cut down the guinea corn than Squirrel leapt out of his hiding-place. 'Why are you stealing my corn ?' he asked. 'It is my corn,' replied Spider. 'Why are you trespassing on my field?' 'It is my field,' said the angry Squirrel. Spider laughed. 'Oh no !' he said. 'It cannot be your field, for there is no path leading to it except the one that my family and I made.' 'But I do not need a path,' explained Squirrel. 'I always come by the treetops.' Spider went on laughing, while his family continued to cut down Squirrel's harvest, so Squirrel cried: 'I shall go to court about this, you thieves! I dug this field and planted and weeded it, and I am not going to stand by and watch you steal it from me.' So Squirrel went to court and Spider was sent for to state his case. 'Of course the field is mine,' said Spider to the judge. 'Have you ever seen a field with no path leading to it through the bush?' The judge had to admit that all the fields he had seen had paths leading to them and when Spider showed him the path he had made and Squirrel admitted that the path was not his, the judge ruled that the field belonged to Spider and his children. They all danced and shouted with glee and decided to work very hard the next day, to cut down the whole of the remaining harvest and take it home to store. So the next morning poor Squirrel had to watch the Spider family reaping the harvest over which he had toiled for so long. They tied the corn into great bundles and when all was cut, they started off for home staggering under their great loads. Suddenly a great storm arose. The sky was black with clouds and the rain beat down so heavily that Spider and his family had to leave their bundles of guinea corn at the roadside and dash to shelter in a disused hut. It was the worst storm they had had for a long time, and when the sky finally cleared and the sun shone again they made their way back along the steaming ground to the path where they had left their bundles of corn. Then they stood still and gazed in surprise at a gigantic black crow who was perched on the corn with outstretched wings. So great was the crow that by spreading his wings he had kept the rain from falling on the bundles of guinea corn, and it was quite dry. Spider was delighted. 'Thank you, Crow. Thank you!' he said happily. 'You have kept my corn dry and now I shall not have to spread it all out in the sun again.' 'Your corn?' objected the crow. 'It's my corn now. Who ever heard of anyone leaving bundles of corn unattended by the side of the path. Go away! This belongs to me.' Then the crow gathered up all the corn in his huge claws, and ~flew away out of sight. So there was nothing left for Spider and his family to do except to return home empty-handed and very angry. You might think that Spider would have learnt a lesson from this, and would have given up his thieving ways, but I am sorry to say that in no time at all he forgot about it and was soon up to his tricks again.

From African Myths and Legends - retold by Kathleen Arnott