Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria

Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria

By Elphinstone Dayrell, Introduction by Andrew Lang.


"Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria is a book by Elphinstone Dayrell, introduction by Andrew Lang, published in 1910.


The book contains forty folk stories and fairy tales from Southern Nigeria which were collected by Elphinstone Dayrell, then the District Commissioner of the region."


Many years ago a book on the Folk-Tales of the Eskimo was published, and the editor of The Academy (Dr. Appleton) told one of his minions to send it to me for revision. By mischance it was sent to an eminent expert in Political Economy, who, never suspecting any error, took the book for the text of an interesting essay on the economics of "the blameless Hyperboreans."


Mr. Dayrell's "Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria" appeal to the anthropologist within me, no less than to the lover of what children and older people call "Fairy Tales." The stories are full of mentions of strange institutions, as well as of rare adventures. I may be permitted to offer some running notes and comments on this mass of African curiosities from the crowded lumber-room of the native mind.