About this folktale
The Cursed Counting Game: How Ananse Outsmarted King Hyena - A West African Trickster Tale is published on Mythopia by Konlan Mikpekoah. The narrative connects to themes and tags including African Tales, Ghanaian Tales, Ananse, African Stories. 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.
King Hyena had one golden stool and four silver stools.
Anyone who counted all the stools would fall down dead,
but the animals didn't know that.
"Win the golden stool!" Hyena said.
"Just count the other stools.
That's all you need to do!" Cat came and counted:
"One, two, three, four, five." Cat fell down dead.
Hyena ate her. Then Rabbit, Dog, Monkey, the same.
Ananse came. "One, two three, four,"
Ananse said, "and one more!" Hyena got angry.
"That's not how to count!" he shouted.
"This is how you count: One, two, three, four, five!"
Hyena fell down dead.
