Summary
Summary of Jamaican Song and Story
Jamaican Song and Story at a glance
Summary: 8 min to read
- Reading time
- About 5 h3 h 55 min fast, 5 h 55 min slow
- Length
- 71,100 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
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Key ideas
Key idea 1
Annancy puts his appetite first
Annancy carries a bag and would rather fill it by theft or fraud than honest work. He is strong, greedy and cruel, yet his friendly manner keeps his companions close. He can appear as a man stealing a cow, then run along the web that Jamaicans call his rope.
His appeal rests on this uneasy mixture of charm and selfishness. Cleverness serves his stomach, not a noble purpose, and he does not always win: Monkey can outwit the trickster himself.
Key idea 2
Speech carries its own music
Jekyll invites the reader to hear the tales before trying to separate every word.
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Key idea 3
The weak can outwit the strong
Donkey trusts his long legs when a king announces a race.
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Key idea 4
Stories change as they travel
Werner sees African and European strands woven through the tales.
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Key idea 5
Songs make things happen
Music enters the tales at decisive moments, and the audience joins the singing.
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Key idea 6
Shared work finds a shared beat
In the fields, friends gather to dig yam hills, and the singing grows livelier as they work.
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Key idea 7
Village life becomes games and songs
Children join hands in a ring, acting out scenes through movement and song.
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Key idea 8
Music also holds fear and history
Behind the jokes and dancing are beliefs about spirits and secret magic.
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Key idea 9
Tales and tunes belong together
The collection brings an oral culture into view through connected forms of expression.
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The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Who it’s for
You will enjoy this if you love trickster tales, folk songs, the sound of spoken dialect, or the daily life of Caribbean villages. Storytellers, singers and teachers will find plenty to read aloud.
What this book is
Who is Annancy, and why do Jamaican field workers roll on the ground laughing when his name comes up? He is a spider who walks like a man, a thief with a cleft palate and an enormous appetite. The hoes stop clicking, the laughter starts, and a storyteller begins.
Jamaican Song and Story was gathered by Walter Jekyll and published in 1906. He lived in the hills behind Kingston and wrote the tales down from men and boys in his employ, in their own words. He added the tunes, notes on speech and custom, and a preface by the folklorist A. Werner. You get fifty-one Annancy tales, then digging sings, ring tunes and dance tunes.
In this summary
- 1Annancy puts his appetite firstFree
- 2Speech carries its own music
- 3The weak can outwit the strong
- 4Stories change as they travel
- 5Songs make things happen
- 6Shared work finds a shared beat
- 7Village life becomes games and songs
- 8Music also holds fear and history
- 9Tales and tunes belong together
Annancy is a greedy, charming trickster
Annancy is the hero of most of the tales. Despite his strength, he avoids effort and needs a substantial reward to do honest work. He carries a bag everywhere and prefers to fill it by fraud or theft.
He feels no remorse for his cruelty, but his hail-fellow-well-met manner charms his companions so much that they almost forgive him. He speaks fast and through his nose, because of a cleft palate, so brother becomes bro'er. At one point, he takes human form and steals a cow. The next he is running along his rope, the Jamaican word for a web.
Werner notes that Annancy is the Ashanti word for spider, a leading figure in West African folk tales. He is not even always clever, for Monkey outwits him more than once. Almost every tale ends with Jack Mantora, I choose none, a polite sign that the story is not aimed at the listener.
Annancy is a rascal you cannot help following, because his cleverness serves his stomach.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
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Check yourself
What usually drives Annancy's cleverness?
Right. “Annancy is a rascal you cannot help following, because his cleverness serves his stomach.”Not quite. “Annancy is a rascal you cannot help following, because his cleverness serves his stomach.”
How does Werner describe the origins of the tales?
Right. “Werner's preface treats the collection as a braid of European and African strands.”Not quite. “Werner's preface treats the collection as a braid of European and African strands.”
How do singers share a digging sing?
Right. “One man raises the tune and the others answer with the bobbin, a short refrain of one or two words.”Not quite. “One man raises the tune and the others answer with the bobbin, a short refrain of one or two words.”
Go deeper: the whole of Jamaican Song and Story
About 5 h 10 min to read.Start freePaperback, hardcover and large print, printed for you at cost, are on their way.Email me when it is printed
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 71,100 words
- Reading timeAbout 5 h
Questions about Jamaican Song and Story
Who is Annancy?
Annancy is a trickster who walks as a man and takes the form of a spider. He is greedy and sly, speaks quickly through his nose, and his name comes from the Ashanti word for spider.
What does Jack Mantora, I choose none mean?
It is the formula that ends most Annancy tales. Jekyll suggests the teller means that no one in the circle is singled out for the beating or fate that the characters receive.
Where do the stories come from?
Werner's preface finds African roots, especially from West Africa, mixed with European fairy tales such as Bluebeard, The Three Pigs and Ali Baba. Some tales may have travelled by several routes and been reshaped locally.
Cite this edition
Jekyll, Walter. Jamaican Song and Story. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/jamaican-song-and-story.
Jekyll, W. (2026). Jamaican song and story. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/jamaican-song-and-story
Jekyll, Walter. Jamaican Song and Story. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/jamaican-song-and-story.
@book{jekyll2026jamaican,
author = {Jekyll, Walter},
title = {Jamaican Song and Story},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/jamaican-song-and-story}
}
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