| Abstract: | This essay focuses on the narrative traditions of the Nama-speaking peoples in Namibia, South Africa. It describes tales in which children are the main protagonists and discusses the character of African tales of magic. It shows that in these tales the “laws” of tale-telling that are known from studies of Western tales by Axel Olrik and Max Lüthi, for example, are stronger than a desire to depict reality. The African tales about children are compared with Western ones about children, particularly in relation to the ATU 327 complex. The paper suggests that both these European tales and African tales of magic should be treated as a special subgenre. |
