This collection of fascinating, mysterious, and revealing tales captures the immense sweep and diversity of African mythology. The stories touch on virtually every aspect of belief: gods and goddesses, epic heroes and divine tricksters, along with epics of the world's origins, the struggle between the human and the divine, and much more. Entries cover the entire continent, from the mouth of the Nile to the Cape of Good Hope.

Here, for example, is the tale of Abu Zayd (from the Bani Hilal of Tunisia), an epic hero who battles a jinni; and here too is a myth of how the moon and the toad created the first man and woman, from the Soko of Congo. Each story is told, and information provided about the respective belief system, the main characters, and related stories or variants.

This magnificent collection not only provides hundreds of fascinating myths, but also recaptures their cultural contexts, in which story and storyteller, tradition and performance, all merge.