In the early 20th century Elphinstone Dayrell, a district commissioner located in Ikom, Eastern Province, Nigeria, collected many folk tales from the Efik and Ibibio peoples of Southeastern Nigeria. The scope of these tales encompasses local mythology and stories suitable for children, to tales so cruel they will still shock a modern public.
Dayrell authored two collections of folklore. The first was published as
Folk stories from Southern Nigeria
(1911), containing 40 stories. The second one he entitled
Ikom Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria
, which was published by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland in 1913. For the first time these works are brought together in one carefully revised volume:
Nigerian Folk Stories Collected From The Efik, Ibibio & People of Ikom
.
This edition comes with a Post Scriptum that offers extra information about the Efik and Obibio and themes that reoccur in the Southern Nigerian folklore as the city of Calabar, the secret fraternity Ekbo or Ekpo and Juju, a centuries old West African tradition that covers a shamanistic and animistic religion as well as medicine, magic, witchcraft, the aura of objects and beings, and finally a fetisj or other magical objects.