Once there was a little spider who wanted to reach the moon...

April 10, 2019 12:56 PM

My grandpa told me a story (when I was about 6?) about a spider who wanted to reach the moon, and eventually, after a series of misadventures, managed to spin a web into a ladder(?) allowing him to climb to his destination. I don't think he made it up; it sounded like a folk tale of some sort, but I can't seem to find anything quite like what I remember. And it would have been roughly 1983-1984 when I heard the story, but I am pretty sure it wasn't contemporary. Help?

I really want to say it might have been an "Anansi story", or some variation thereof, but if so, google hasn't been super helpful in narrowing it down. And searching for "spider", "moon", etc., tends to get me a lot of pages about Spider-Man. From what I recall of the narrative, there was a spider who desperately wanted to reach the moon, but was told it was impossible by the other animals(?), and yet he kept working at it and reaching higher and higher points (like the top of a tree, then a mountain, maybe?), until he finally got to the moon.

It's entirely possible that I'm remembering something wrong or mixing up multiple stories, but if there IS anything anyone knows of like what I'm describing, I'd love to read it (it would be awesome to be able to share it with my little niece and nephew, for instance). Any ideas?

posted by aecorwin to Media & Arts (3 answers total)

Here's a story published in 1906, called "Effocassoo and Small Brother," an Orleans Indian legend, in which there is a spider who, in competition with other creatures, is able to shoot an arrow that carries his thread to the Moon, which then allows the Green Worm to climb to the Moon, carrying Effocasso on his back.
posted by beagle at 2:05 PM on April 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

The first thing my s/o said was "Anansi" but she doesn't know for sure the moon was involved.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:06 PM on April 10, 2019

Response by poster: UPDATE: According to my grandma, this WAS actually an original story my grandpa made up for his kids and grandkids! So it probably did have some folk-tale elements, but was nonetheless not something I'm going to find anywhere in the form I remember. Now I really wish we'd written it down...maybe I'll see how much of it other family members recall, because it was really lovely and it would be wonderful to share with the next generation in his honor.
posted by aecorwin at 11:39 AM on April 15, 2019 [1 favorite]