Long ago, as children, we would often go to the country for the long summer vacation. One of the distinct memories surviving from those times, along with those of river and sea excursions, huge meals and friends made for life, is of the stories that were told.

More often than not they were created on the spot, as my Aunt Polly's smile would reveal, as she looked at my father with mild surprise when some incredible variant of an old tale came into his head. Drawing from a vast stock of standard information on the various folk characters of Trinidad and Tobago, he was able to innovate and create narratives that could cause us to either laugh with relief or quake in our shoes. This book seeks to show what these creatures look like and to tell something of their various attributes, and gives examples of how stories may be told.