Fables and
trickster stories are short narratives that use animal characters with human
features to convey folk wisdom and to help us understand human nature and human
behavior. These stories were originally passed down through oral tradition and
were eventually written down. The legendary figure Aesop was reported to have
orally passed on his animal fables, which have been linked to earlier beast
tales from India and were later written down by the Greeks and Romans. Ananse
trickster tales derive from the Asante people of Ghana and were brought by
African slaves to the Caribbean and parts of the U.S. These tales developed into
Brer Rabbit stories and were written down in the 19th century in the American
South.