Now, probably you know some Anansi stories. Probably there’s no one in the whole wide world doesn’t know some Anansi stories.
Anansi was a spider, when the world was young, and all the stories were being told for the first time. He used to get himself into trouble, and he used to get himself out of trouble. The story of the Tar-Baby, the one they tell about Bre’r Rabbit? That was Anansi’s story first. Some people thinks he was a rabbit. But that’s their mistake. He wasn’t a rabbit. He was a spider.
Anansi stories go back as long as people been telling each other stories. Back in Africa, where everything began, even before people were painting cave lions and bears on rock walls, even then they were telling stories, about monkeys and lions and buffalo: big dream stories. People always had those proclivities. That was how they made sense of their worlds. Everything that ran or crawled or swung or snaked got to walk through those stories, and different tribes of people would venerate different creatures.
Lion was the king of beasts, even then, and Gazelle was the fleetest of foot, and Monkey was the most foolish, and Tiger was the most terrible, but it wasn’t stories about them people wanted to hear.
Anansi gave his name to stories. Every story is Anansi’s. Once, before the stories were Anansi’s, they all belonged to Tiger (which is the name the people of the islands call all the big cats), and the tales were dark and evil, and filled with pain, and none of them ended happily. But that was a long time ago. These days, the stories are Anansi’s.
-- From Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
Anansi Boys is our first cache, placed in honor of the book by Neil Gaiman. A copy of the book is in the cache for the first to find, we hope you enjoy it.
The cache is a typical Pacific Northwest hide located in a greenspace near Microsoft. Access to the cache is via main trails (which are graveled) and side trail paths; you do not need to create new trails to reach the cache. This cache should only be visited during daylight hours. Please be aware that many muggles from nearby apartments and Microsoft buildings use these trails.
The trails through the Microsoft greenspace are open to the public during daylight hours and are a wonderful place to explore. If you start from the trailhead waypoint you will pass several signs that provide information about the area as you walk to the cache location.
FTF congrats to _Shaddow_ & DrTusk