One strain of the African American short story has its pre-literary roots in a rich tradition of oral tales deriving from the earliest days of slavery. Humorous animal trickster fables about figures like Brer Rabbit, Brer Coon and Brer Terrapin, stories of magical Africans, of conjure figures (magicians who cast spells on others), or of clever slaves who tricked their masters, were all numerous in the Southern and South-Western states, and began to be collected by folklorists and historians towards the end of the nineteenth century. ‘When Brer Deer and Brer Terrapin Runned a Race’, for example, tells of how Brer Terrapin despite his slowness wins the seven-mile race along the river bank to decide who will win the hand of Mr Coon's daughter. He puts one of his brothers at every mile-post and at the finishing post, and each time Brer Deer arrives at a post a brother puts his head out of the water and says ‘Oho, here I is!’ A conjure story from Eatonville, Florida, collected by the African American writer Zora Neale Hurston, tells of how Aunt Judy puts a particularly unpleasant spell on the dandy and womanizer Horace Carter to stop him chasing after women. In one very short example of the ‘clever slave’ stories about John and his Master, known as ‘Baby in the Crib’, John steals a pig and disguises it as a baby; and when ‘Old Marsa’ insists on seeing it John says: ‘If that baby is turned into a pig now, don't blame me.’