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Trickster Tale

Ananse's Plantain Plot: The Spider's Clever Scheme for Extra Food

1 min read

About this folktale

Ananse's Plantain Plot: The Spider's Clever Scheme for Extra Food 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.

African folktale illustration – Ananse's Plantain Plot: The Spider's Clever Scheme for Extra Food

Ananse and his family were starving.

At last, Ananse found some food: plantains.

There were four plantains, but five mouths to feed: Ananse,

Mrs. Ananse, two sons and a daughter.

Mrs. Ananse roasted the plantains,

and Ananse gave one each to the children and one to his wife.

"Don't you worry about me," he said sadly.

"Aren't you hungry?" asked his daughter.

"I'm starving, dear child," said Ananse. "But never you mind."

She broke her plantain and gave half to Ananse.

The two boys did the same.

And Mrs. Ananse.

So Ananse ended up with more food than anybody else.

THE END...