In this submission, the potential of hylistic analysis for the domain of Southern African folklore is demonstrated. For that purpose, narrative sequences of folktales are carefully re-constructed according to the new hylistic theory and analysed on a subset of 30 folktales from Henry Callaway's Nursery Tales and Histories of the Zulus, a unique parallel resource in English-vernacular isiZulu.

The dataset, consisting of 5176 distinct narrative statements, so-called hylemes in 384 narrative sequences, is presented as a freely accessible resource which holds transformative potential for the re-interpretation and (automatic) processing of folktale narratives. It is the first step towards a thorough investigation of Callaway's collection, and an effort to the analysis of the tales' narrative structures. The dataset can be used as a resource for many future studies on folktale characters and plots as well as the study of historical isiZulu.

The editors are happy to present the first special issue of the Journal of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA). In this issue, we bring together articles from the field of Digital Humanities with the underlying theme “Crossroads DH”. Under this umbrella topic, we investigate the manifold connections of Digital Humanities with academic disciplines that are not usually connected with Digital Humanities. This also includes research on comparative Digital Humanities studies of different datasets, and hands-on or analytical work in the sciences where Digital Humanities methods or approaches are applied. Additionally, this issue contains practical examples of the application of Digital Humanities and their application to real life problems.