The Ogress and the Snake and Other Stories from Somalia

by Elizabeth Laird, Shelley Fowles (Illustrator)

For millennia, Somalia has been crossed and recrossed by camel caravans of merchants, bringing with them stories such as "The Good Prince," in which a kindhearted prince conquers the evil magic of a beautiful sorceress, and "The Ogress and the Snake," a Somali Hansel and Gretel story about five little girls, abandoned in the desert, who take refuge in the house of a man-eating ogress. Elizabeth Laird heard many of these tales in Jigjiga, the capital of Ethiopia's Somali region. She gathers together the finest of them in The Ogress and the Snake and Other Stories from Somalia. The stories abound with colorful characters — Deya Ali, the greedy trickster fox; Kabaalaf the shopkeeper, crooked as a jug-handle, who meets his match in the slippery Hirsi; and the miraculous (and bodyless) Head, whose magic powers conjure up a talking camel and bring him a princess. These and the other magical tales in this delightful collection are the perfect introduction to a fascinating and little-known country.

Genres: Somalia, Short Stories, Africa

96 pages, Paperback

First published November 24, 2009

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

[Barbara McEwen]

I thought these were great and often quite funny. I suppose I should add that you shouldn't pick this up for the illustrations. They are very simple black line drawings but even then they are grainy and dark. I didn't take away any stars but I would give bonus stars if they had some illustrations as vibrant as the stories.

[Rebecca]

Although short, this collection of Somali folk tales is a very nice introduction to the lore of the region and several of the tales are easily recognizable variants of well-known fairy tales that could spark good conversations in a classroom or with an adult. (The title story is of the Hansel and Gretel tale type, falling somewhere between "Mollie Whuppie" and "Little Thumbling," for example.)

[John Stinebaugh]

Can you see what I see? Can you hear what I hear? No! What can you see? What do you hear? Tell us!
The book starts by telling us this is a traditional way to start a Somali story. This is a fun collection of fairy tales and moral stories. A great way to take a trip and broaden your perspective.

[Heidi]

A nice collection of stories from a country that is under represented in literature. Interesting to see some common elements to fairy tales in other countries. The one with the boy born as only a head was a bit bizarre. Why did he get a body at the end? That needed to be explained better.

[Renee Burr]

This book is a collection of folktales from Somalia. Upper elementary students will enjoy these stories because there is just the right amount of strangeness about each one, have you ever heard of a story called "The Miraculous Head?" Each story ends in a moral which makes them ideal stories when taking about author's message. My favorite story is called "The Good Prince." A young prince is banished by his father, but he makes friends with a whale, an antelope, and mouse in his journey to a new home. Each animals pledges to help him in a time of need, which the prince finds useful when trying to match the challenge of the beautiful princess who he wants to marry. Students learn that it is better to be kind than to be rich!
These stories are great for exposing students to literature from other cultures, particular the Somalian culture (did you know Columbus, Ohio has the second largest population of Somali immigrants in the U.S.?). They are also useful to compare and contrast between these tales and traditional American tales of similar plot. Finally, finding the moral of each story leads to some interesting class discussions.

[Krista the Krazy Kataloguer]

I loved this collection of folktales from Somalia, but then I like everything Elizabeth Laird writes. Laird has been to Somalia, and in the introduction she tells the reader where she heard each of the stories in the book. There wasn't a story I didn't like, but my favorite was the last one, "Slippery Hirsi and Crooked Kabaalaf". The idea of a woman giving birth to a head kinda grosses me out, but the story was clever and reminded me somewhat of Puss in Boots, with the head as Puss. Highly recommended!

[Rachel Hope Crossman]

Elizabeth Laird risked her life going into war zones to collect these tales. If ever a people needed the fantasy outlet of a good fairy tale, it must be the suffering people of Somalia, the country that these stories are from. The title story is a Cinderella tale, with a marvelous twist. It begins, "One day, there lived a man and his wife who had five little daughters...one sad day, the children's mother fell ill and died..."

[Anita]

A great collection of Somali stories that reveal aspects of Somali culture and values. My husband laughed out loud at points.