The Flame Tree and Other Folk-Lore Stories from Uganda


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(5 stars; 4 reviews)

Rosetta Baskerville was the wife of George Baskerville, a missionary in Uganda. Some of the folktales in this book, published in 1925, are stories that Baskerville heard herself, while other stories she adapted from the Baganda folktales collected by Apollo Kaggwa [1864–1927]. You will find origin stories here, like the origin of the flame tree and of the flowers called "Nsangi's tears." There are fairy tales like "The Buffalo Maiden" and "The River Fairy." The main trickster character is the hare (rabbit), as in the story of "The Elephant That Wanted to Dance" and The Hare Who Earned a Cow and a Chieftainship." Some of the stories are connected with proverbs, like "The Absent-minded Bridegroom" and "The Quits of Gomba," and there are riddles in the story of "The Holy Man." This book is a follow-up to Baskerville's first collection of folktales from Uganda, The King of the Snakes and Other Folklore Stories from Uganda, published in 1922. (Summary by Laura Gibbs) (2 hr 11 min)

Chapters

Preface 1:26 Read by laurakgibbs
The Flame Tree 6:25 Read by laurakgibbs
The Buffalo Maiden 9:52 Read by laurakgibbs
The Mpa Bana Bird 2:48 Read by laurakgibbs
The Absentminded Bridegroom 1:55 Read by laurakgibbs
The Singer 1:17 Read by laurakgibbs
The Famine 4:28 Read by laurakgibbs
The Quits of Gomba 2:07 Read by laurakgibbs
The Dog and the Leopard 3:17 Read by laurakgibbs
The Leopard, the Hare, and the Monkey 4:58 Read by laurakgibbs
Musoke the Moon-Boy 10:55 Read by laurakgibbs
The Elephant That Wanted to Dance 6:38 Read by laurakgibbs
The Man Who Knew Too Much 1:53 Read by laurakgibbs
The Story of Nsangi and the Apes 7:27 Read by laurakgibbs
Soliloquy of Old Age in a Banana Garden 1:38 Read by laurakgibbs
The Law Concerning Fortune-tellers 6:42 Read by laurakgibbs
The Holy Man 8:33 Read by laurakgibbs
The Cheats of Kijongo 2:20 Read by laurakgibbs
The Story of the Frog 4:05 Read by laurakgibbs
The Hare Who Earned a Cow and a Chieftainship 6:35 Read by laurakgibbs
Song of a Muhima Herding Cattle in Bugerere 1:34 Read by laurakgibbs
The Lion-Girl 4:57 Read by laurakgibbs
The Story of the Wonderful Goat 5:14 Read by laurakgibbs
The River Fairy 13:51 Read by laurakgibbs
The Royal Puff Adders of Budo 10:34 Read by laurakgibbs