The Fire On The Mountain by Harold Courlander and Wolf Leslau is a companion volume to Mr. Courlander's earlier work, The Cow-Tail Switch and other West African Stories.

The folk literature of Ethiopia represents a cross current of cultures of the Middle East, Africa, and the West. Some of the tales in this collection have counterparts in Moslem-Africa, Arabia, and India; others bear a resemblance to stories known in Central and Western Europe. Many, however, bear the mark of strictly local invention, and virtually all of them have been so colored by the life and custom of the Ethiopian people that they have a flavor of their own.

Though there are many languages and many tribes in Ethiopia, the stories the people tell around their fires at night are the same, for they have been carried back and forth for centuries in the migrations of cattle herders, by camel caravans, and by the traders. Where the stories came from in the beginning no one knows, but many, no doubt, were told for the first time by wise old men in...

From the dust jacket