The Night of Stolen Eggs: How Ananse the Spider Tricked Firefly and Tiger - West African Folktale

Firefly and Ananse were gathering eggs at night.

"Little eggs for you," said Ananse.

"Big eggs for me."

This made Firefly mad, so he flew away.

Stumbling in the dark, Ananse found Tiger's house.

"Help me!" said Ananse. "I'll give you these eggs."

Tiger let Ananse sleep in his house and,

knowing Ananse,

he put scorpions around the egg-basket to protect the eggs.

When Ananse went to steal the eggs,

the scorpions bit him.

Ananse started crying.

"Why are you crying?" asked Tiger.

Ananse lied. "I miss my family!"

And since Ananse couldn't steal the eggs,

he stole Tiger's sheep.