Kampstories

Résumé

Kampstories by C. Louis Leipoldt is a collection of children’s campfire tales written in the early 20th century. Drawing on fable, folk legend, and playful oral storytelling, it moves between the South African veld and far‑flung “Eastern” settings, mixing humor with quick moral turns and trickster wit. Expect lively narrators, talking animals, and colorful scene‑setting that speak directly to young listeners. The opening of the collection starts with a brief foreword explaining these are stories told at school camps for younger children, followed by a contents list. The first tale recounts a primeval fable in which a hungry hunter is outsmarted by a once‑blind man who ends up with a kraal of cattle and sends the hunter off to become, so the Boesmans say, the first Bushman. Next comes a richly scented visit to Abdoel’s Cape spice shop, where the old shopkeeper spins a stern parable about a proud courtier who plots against a king and is crushed by a clever, cruel justice; Abdoel then tells another story of the fisherman Sadiah, a golden otter, and a grasping sorcerer undone by his own knife. A Hantam vignette follows, where a kraai outwits a rinkals that demands the life of the man who freed it, trapping the snake back under the same rock. The excerpt closes in China with a chatty little firecracker headed by canal boat to a lantern‑lit imperial festival—just as the emperor readies tea and fireworks and the scene breaks off. (This is an automatically generated summary.)