Notes

Me, me I mus' have, etc., I will find out those girls' names. Anybody else would have said:—"Me mus' have fe find them ya (those here) gal name," but Annancy likes to add a few more syllables. His speech is Bungo talk. The Jamaican looks down on the Bungo (rhymes with Mungo) who "no 'peak good English."

abbly no me, except me.

go under the house. It is no absurdity to the narrator's mind to picture the King's house on the pattern of his own. This is a two-roomed hut, consisting of the hall or dining-room and a bedroom. It is floored with inch-thick cedar boards roughly cut and planed, so that they never lie very close. An air space is left underneath, and anybody who creeps under the hut can hear all that goes on above.

bahl, bawl.

hear it all good, hears everything perfectly.

Play up the music. He almost sings, like this:—

[Listen] [XML]

Play up the music.

all the better, all the harder.

massoo himself, lifts herself up. "Massoo" is an African word. The hall seems to have a sort of gallery.

t'row down, etc., throws herself down and breaks her neck. They always say to broke.

Dat time de King. The turning of th into a d or nearly a d is characteristic of negro speech. To avoid the tiresomeness of dialect-printing, and for another reason to be mentioned by and by, this is not always indicated. The change is introduced occasionally to remind readers of the right pronunciation.

let them sing, makes them sing.

Sometime him dare, sometimes he is there (at home), sometimes he goes and runs upon his web and steals cows for his wife. Other stories will show Annancy's partiality for beef, or indeed anything eatable.

tief, thieve.

Spiders' webs of any kind are called Annancy ropes.