Fairy Tales from South Africa: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Fairy Tales from South Africa, credited to Mrs. E. J. Bourhill, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Fairy Tales from South Africa by Mrs. E. J. Bourhill. Read in English by NoelBadrian The stories in this collection come from the oral traditions of the people from Swaziland, Matabeleland (Ndebele people) and Zululand in South Africa. The authors, Mrs. E. J. Bourhill and Mrs. J. B. Drake, or more properly the collectors and editors of the stories assert that: "All the stories in this book are real Fairy Tales, just as much as Jack the Giant-killer or The Sleeping Beauty. By this I mean that they are traditional, handed down by word of mouth. Nobody knows how old they are, or who told them first." The stories are full of witches and magicians and monsters, as well as heroes and princesses and good and bad rulers. They have done a marvellous job of putting these stories into English but admit that there is much lost in the translation and in not being able to see the storyteller who would not only tell the story but act it out while doing so. Mrs. Bourhill and Mrs. Drake were concerned that, as the way of life and the customs of the people were slowly changing, these wonderful traditional stories might fade away. They thus decided to write them down for posterity. - Summary by Noel Badrian

Recording facts

• Recording title: Fairy Tales from South Africa
• Author credits: Mrs. E. J. Bourhill
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 20
• Listed recording duration: 5:51:46

Catalogue topics

• South Africa
• fairy stories
• traditional tales

Track guide

1. 01 - Setuli; Or, The King Of The Birds — 24:19
2. 02 - The Story Of The King's Son And The Magic Song — 14:16
3. 03 - The Story Of The Little Birds Who Lived In A Cave — 5:25
4. 04 - The Story Of The Shining Princess — 15:45
5. 05 - The Rabbit Prince — 20:38
6. 06 - The Unnatural Mother — 11:42
7. 07 - The Three Little Eggs — 17:34
8. 08 - The Serpent's Bride Part 1 — 31:00
9. 09 - The Serpent's Bride Part 2 — 22:03
10. 10 - The Fairy Bird — 23:44
11. 11 - The Cock's Kraal — 9:58
12. 12 - Baboon-Skins — 16:04
13. 13 - The Reward Of Industry — 13:02
14. 14 - The Story Of Semai-Mai Part 1 — 15:31
15. 15 - The Story Of Semai-Mai Part 2 — 23:48
16. 16 - The Fairy Frog — 14:17
17. 17 - Nya-Nya Bulembu; Or, The Moss-Green Princess — 18:38
18. 18 - The Enchanted Buck — 16:45
19. 19 - The Beauty And The Beast — 18:19
20. 20 - The White Dove — 18:58

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.