Akwaaba, this is the music I choose for my first tale, the real story about how I became spider…

There was once a African king who bragged he had the finest ram in the world.

Well, when this ugly, fat, angry ram happened to be grazing on my crops one day, I threw a rock at it - just to scare it. But I slipped and hit it between the eyes. Killed the kpɛkpɛ thing.

I knew that the king would punish me for what I’d done to the prize ram, and I knew I had to figure something out.

So I went to sit under a tree to think of an escape when, all of a sudden, a nut fell and struck me on the head. Gave me a great idea.

First, I took the dead ram and tied it to the nut tree. Then I went to this spider and told it of a wonderful tree laden with nuts.

The spider was delighted and immediately went to the tree. Then I went to the king and told him that the spider had evidently killed the prize ram; the ram was hanging from a tree where the spider was spinning webs. The king flew into a rage and demanded the death penalty for the spider.

The king thanked me and offered him a great reward. So I returned to the spider and warned it of the king’s wrath, crying out to the whole world that the spider had killed the ram.

The spider was very confused, but he had bitten me more than once in my sleep, so I figured it was fair play.

So I told the spider to go to the king and plead for mercy, and perhaps the spider’s life would be spared. Meanwhile, the king had gone home for lunch and told his wife what happened.

The wife just laughed and said, “Have you lost your mind? How on earth could a little spider make a thread strong enough to hold a ram? How in the world could that little spider hoist the ram up there? Don’t you know, Anansi obviously killed your ram! By now you should know, he is a trickster!”.

So the king gets mad that he’d been tricked, and told his court to fetch me immediately. When the king’s men came for him, I assumed that it was to bring me to the palace for my reward for turning in the spider.

After all, no one likes spiders.

So I went along with it all.

So I walk into the palace, feeling good, and I say to the king, “Well, what is my reward for the killer of your ram?”

This kinda made the king mad. So he kicks me. Very, very hard. Like smite from God level hard. Enough to split me into two pieces; and from then on, I was no longer a man, but a spider with long legs.