The Long Grass Whispers

The Long Grass Whispers is the first of four books by Geraldine Elliot, each containing a collection of short stories which are interpretations of the traditional tales of the Ngoni people of Malawi. They were told to the author by an old man who had heard them from his grandmother, tales which were told when the people gathered round the fire after a long day and wanted distraction from the fears of the African night.

They are tales of the wild animals the people knew, lovely stories, simple yet filled with wisdom. I was read them by my mother, and I read them to my children. One of the characters, Njobvu the elephant, is depicted on the cover of the first book, but....

....the real 'hero' is kalulu the rabbit. Kalulu wasn't a rabbit - there are no wild rabbits in Africa - but a hare, and the stories of his trickery were exported with the people who were carried to the New World as slaves, where he became known as Br'er Rabbit.

The book was first published in 1939 but mine is the 1949 impression. It was followed by Where the Leopard Passes (1949), The Hunter's Cave ( 1951) and The Singing Chameleon (1957) - I have them all.

This is the inside cover of The Long Grass Whispers. The sticker shows that it was bought at Christian Vigne's bookshop in Bulawayo in what was then Southern Rhodesia. Christian was my mother's older sister, and my mother visited her with my brother Richard on their way from Kenya to England in 1952.