When the World Began: Stories Collected in Ethiopia

by Elizabeth Laird

The classic stories of our childhood--"Cinderella," "The Sleeping Beauty," Little Red Riding Hood"--exist only in books today, but they started their lives as oral tales told from one generation to the next. In Ethiopia, however, great treasuries of fairy tales still live in people's heads and
have never been written down. Old people sit together in the evenings and tell each other stories that were already old a hundred years ago.
Elizabeth Laird--a winner of the Reader's Choice award and the Children's Book award--spent two years traveling around Ethiopia and collecting the tales in this anthology. She was told stories by Muslims in the hot, dry deserts of the East; Christians from the cool, central Highlands; and people
from even older religions from the warm, humid South. The different faiths and cultures are reflected in the stories, with their varying notions of God, heaven, and the spirit world. You will enjoy the funny stories with a twist, the exciting adventure stories of brave warriors and hunters, the
clever stories of cunning and trickery, along with stories about ogres and kings and merchants and farmers and animals.

Genres: Folk Tales, Ethiopia

96 pages, Hardcover

First published August 17, 2000

About the author

Laird was born in New Zealand in 1943, the fourth of five children. Her father was a ship's surgeon; both he and Laird's mother were Scottish. In 1945, Laird and her family returned to Britain and she grew up in South London, where she was educated at Croydon High School.
When she was eighteen, Laird started teaching at a school in Malaysia. She decided to continue her adventurous life, even though she was bitten by a poisonous snake and went down with typhoid.

After attending the university in Bristol, Laird began teaching English in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She and a friend would hire mules and go into remote areas in the holidays.

After a while at Edinburgh University, Laird worked in India for a summer. During travel, she met her future husband, David McDowall, who she said was very kind to her when she was airsick on a plane. The couple were married in 1975 and have two sons, Angus and William.

Laird has also visited Iraq and Lebanon. She claims to dislike snakes, porridge and being cold but enjoys very dark chocolate, Mozart, reading and playing the violin in the Iraq Symphony Orchestra.

She currently lives in Richmond, London with her husband.

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

My summary: A collection of twenty folk tales and myths that reflect the rich culture of the Ethiopian storytelling tradition.

This is a treasure-trove of traditional literature, collected from the many different cultures and faiths of Ethiopia. The stories vary in length, but are told in a simple, story-teller's style and accented with rich color illustrations and evocative black and white sketches. The author also includes an afterword about the oral tradition in Ethiopia and lists the names of the Ethiopian storytellers who gave her these stories. Suitable for readers ages 8-12 who don't need a lot of pictures to go with the text.

Positively reviewed in SLJ and Booklist, which calls it "a welcome addition to multicultural story collections."

[Tom Elliott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Confirmed the universal nature of folk tales to me - very archetypal with morals. At the same time, the differences in the moral conclusions from many Western European fairy tales was illuminating. One big similarity was that large predators were dangerous - unlike the anthropomorphized and Disneyfied cuteness of wild animals that can lead to Grizzly Man situations....

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of Ethiopian fairy tales, some reminiscent of Grimm's and Aesop's and other fresh and unique from an altogether different strain of storytelling.