Simpson introduces a set of tales collected in northern Haiti in 1937 with an account of how they were performed. Rural storytellers work through mimicry and pantomime with almost no props: a broom serves as a horse, a chair as a man or a water jar, pebbles as charms. The admired ones are asked to wakes, weddings and ceremonies and given the best of the food and drink.

Repertoires vary by teller and audience. Men favour war, cockfights, the loas, loups garous and zombies; women speak of markets, illness, quarrels and love affairs; children prefer the adventures of Bouqui and Ti Malice. A narrator may hold a story back if he suspects someone listening is a loup garou.

The tales themselves range from animal trickery to a boy named The-One-Who-Is-Always-Right, a devil bargaining children for water, and grateful animals granting the power to change shape. Evening storytelling, Simpson notes, was already fading.