00:01
There is a village in Jamaica, twenty miles from Montego Bay and six miles from Lucea, called Clearmont. As a child, I used to visit my uncle during summer holidays. My auntie was a great storyteller. In the late evenings before dusk, my cousins and I gathered around for folktales.
00:40
An ant never borrow. An ant never lend.
00:49
Anancy borrow Monkey money, so tell Monkey fi come Wednesday.
01:01
When Monkey come, Anancy knock him stomach, seh, “Broad enough, yu can knock it.” So Monkey ketch him and beat him.
01:21
Next day, Monkey come. He seh, “Mudder Anancy, weh yu son?” She seh, “Brer Monkey, yu murder him yesterday. Don’t know if him dead.”
01:40
Monkey call one rooster-cock, cut de craw, tek out Anancy and beat him.
02:00
When him gone, Anancy seh, “Ma, yu going mek Brer Monkey kill me?
- Storyteller
- Fay Chung
- Recording date
- 24 Jul 2026
- Location / community
- Clearmont, near Lucea, Jamaica
- Duration
- 04:51
- Card label / subtitle
- An Anancy tale of borrowing, hiding and trickery
- Themes
- Morals & Lessons, Nature & Animals, Trickery & Wit
- Language / dialect
- English, Jamaican Patois
- Cultural / community context
Fay remembers hearing this story during childhood visits to her uncle in Clearmont, Jamaica. Her auntie would gather the children together in the late evening, before dusk, and tell them folktales.
The story belongs to the Jamaican oral storytelling tradition and centres on Anancy, the celebrated Caribbean trickster figure. It also features Mudder Anancy, Brer Monkey and references to Obeah. Fay performs much of the story in Jamaican patois, whose vocabulary, rhythm and grammatical forms have been retained.
- Archive permission
- Consent given by Fay Chung
10 Sep 2026, 10:54
