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One day, Ananse was walking in the forest, so when he got tired, he sat near some pretty flowers, that smelled so sweet that
he drew closer to them to look at them.
While he was there, Tiger came up, spied the flowers and said: "What pretty flowers.. I think I'll call them Tiger
Lilies."
Ananse said nothing, because Tiger was king, and the king could do whatever he chose.
Everywhere Ananse went, he found something that was named after Tiger. One day when he could take it no more he said to
himself. I am going to ask Tiger if I could have something named after me too.
So, Ananse went to see Tiger and asked him: "Brother Tiger. Please let me have something named after me."
Everyone started to jeer Ananse until Tiger felt sorry for him and said: "OK. If you can tie up Brother Snake and
bring him to me, I will let you have something named after you."
Now Brother Tiger and Brother Snake could never get along, and even though he was King of the forest, Tiger always gave
Snake a wide berth.
In fact, Snake was only afraid of Brother Elephant.
Meanwhile Ananse considered and thought it over until he came up with a plan.
Now Snake heard what happened between Tiger and Ananse and he laughed to himself. He decided to teach Ananse a lesson.
Ananse in the mean time pretended to forget about the task that Tiger had set him. Snake was expecting Ananse to try to capture
him and when that didn't happen, Snake eventually grew tired and and came to Ananse's house one day.
"I hear that you are going to catch me and take me to Tiger," said Brother Snake to Ananse.
Ananse was so frightened that he couldn't speak a word. Then Snake said: "Here I am. Catch me now!"
Ananse looked at Snake and said: "I knew I couldn't manage you, but I wanted to tell Tiger how long you were so that
he could see that it was an impossible task and give me something easier to do. I was thinking to myself that the bamboo over
there is longer than you and I was thinking of a way to ask you to let me measure you against it.
Snake laughed and said: "Look at me, don't you see that I am longer than the bamboo?"
Ananse replied: "I was thinking the very same thing, but I wanted to know exactly how long you were so if you could
just let me cut down the bamboo and measure you against it. I would be thankful."
Brother Snake agreed and Ananse cut down the bamboo, but when Snake lay beside the bamboo, it was longer than he was.
So Ananse said: "Brother Snake, I know that you will be longer than the bamboo if you stretch to your full length and,
if you let me tie your tail to one end of the bamboo, you will have something to pull against.
Snake agreed, but the bamboo was still longer than him.
Then Ananse had an idea: "Let me tie you in the middle so that you can stretch a bit further."
Snake agreed, but the bamboo was still longer than him.
Ananse stood there for a while, looking up in the sky, acting as if he was wondering what he could do to help Snake prove
he was longer than the bamboo. Then he said: "Brother Snake. If I tie your head to the bamboo then you will be able to
stretch the last few inches and then you can finally prove you are longer than the bamboo.
And vain Brother Snake agreed.
This time he was able to prove he was longer than the bamboo but before he could react, Ananse said: "I know that
you are tired from all that stretching, so let me just tie your head and go fetch my measuring tape so that no one can say
that you're not longer than the bamboo."
Snake agreed again, not realizing that he was already tied up securely and couldn't move. In the meantime Ananse was gathering
all people, Tiger included.
After a long while Snake said: "Alright now Ananse. You can see that I am longer than the bamboo. Cut the ropes and
let me go."
But Ananse laughed and said: "I still have to win that bet I made with Tiger, so let me just call him so that he
can see for himself that I have won."
Tiger was so surprised and conscious of all the people who heard him say so, he agreed to let Ananse have the stories
named after him.
And from that day the stories of the Ashante people and their descendants in the West Indies have been called Ananse Stories.
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