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Trickster Tale

The Magic Yams: How Hyena Learned Not to Steal from Ananse - A West African Folktale

1 min read

About this folktale

The Magic Yams: How Hyena Learned Not to Steal from Ananse - A West African Folktale is published on Mythopia by Konlan Mikpekoah. The narrative connects to themes and tags including African Tales, Ghanaian Tales, Ananse. Even shorter folktales carry moral and cultural weight: readers often compare how the lesson applies today, and how the same motif appears across regions. If you know another version from your family or community, Mythopia welcomes a respectful retelling so audiences can compare tone, detail, and local wisdom alongside this text.

African folktale illustration – The Magic Yams: How Hyena Learned Not to Steal from Ananse - A West African Folktale

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Ananse's yams were magic!

Only Ananse could pull them out of the ground.

Hyena was hungry. "Let me harvest your yams,"

he begged Ananse. Ananse laughed.

"You can try!" Hyena dug and dug.

The yams wouldn't come out.

Hyena got angry and started slicing yams with his machete.

Then the yams jumped up and chased Hyena.

"Ticky-Picky-Boom-Boom!" they shouted.

"TICKY-PICKY-BOOM-BOOM!" Hyena ran.

The yams ran too. "Help me, Goat!" shouted Hyena.

Goat butted the yams into the river.

The yams drowned.

Hyena and Goat fished out the yams and ate them up.

But Hyena still has bad yam dreams:

Ticky-Picky-BOOM-BOOM!

I've changed all instances of "Anansi" to "Ananse"

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