Book: Filipino Popular Tales

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Popular stories belonging to this cycle and containing the wager are
the following:--


J. F. Campbell, No. 18.
J. W. Wolf, p. 355.
Simrock, Deutsche Märchen, No. 51 (1864 ed., p. 235).
H. Pröhle, No. 61, p. 179 (cf. also p. xlii).
Ausland, 1856 : 1053, for a Roumanian story.
F. Miklosisch, Märchen und Lieder der Zigeuner der Bukowina, No. 14.
D. G. Bernoni, Fiabe popolari veneziane, No. I.
Gonzenbach, No. 7.
G. Pitrè, Nos. 73, 75.
V. Imbriani, La Novellaja Fiorentina, p. 483.


Other folk-tales somewhat more distantly related are,--


Comparetti, Nos. 36 and 60.
Webster, Basque Legends, p. 132.
F. Kreutzwald, Estnische Märchen (übersetzt von F. Löwe), 2d Hälfte,
No. 6.
H. Bergh, Sogur m. m. fraa Valdris og Hallingdal, p. 16.


For the story in general, see the following:--


Landau on the Dekameron, op. cit.
A. Rochs, Ueber den Veilchen Roman und die Wanderung der Euriant
saga. Halle, 1882. (Reviewed as a worthless piece of work by R. Köhler
in Literaturblatt für germ. und rom. Philologie, 1883 : No. 7.)
R. Ohle, Shakespeares Cymbeline und seine Romanischen
Vorläufer. Berlin, 1890. (This does not discuss the popular versions
at all.)
H. A. Todd, Guillaume de Dole, in Transactions and Proceedings of
the Modern Language Association of America, 2 (1887) : 107 ff.
Von der Hagen, Gesammtabenteuer, 3 : LXXXIII.
G. Servois, op. cit., Introduction.


For some additional bibliographical items in connection with this
cycle, see Köhler, "Literaturblatt," etc., p. 274. To the list above
should be added finally, of course, the stories given in more detail
earlier in this note.


TALE 31


Who is the Nearest Relative?

Narrated by Leopoldo Uichanco, a Tagalog of Calamba, Laguna.

"On my life!" exclaimed old Julian one day to his grandson Antonio,
who was clinging fast to his elbows and bothering him, as usual, "you
will soon become insane with stories. Now, I will tell you a story on
this condition: you must answer the question I shall put at the end
of the narrative. If you give the correct answer, then I will tell
you some more tales; if not, why, you must be unfortunate." Antonio
nodded, and said, "Very well!" as he leaned on the table to listen
to his grandfather. Then the old man began:--

"There was once a young man who had completed his course of study
and was to be ordained a priest. Now, whenever a man was about to
be entrusted with the duty of being a minister of God, and Christ's
representative on earth, it was the custom to trace his ancestry back
as far as possible, to see that there was no bad member on any branch
of his family tree. Inquiries were made and information was sought
regarding the young man's relatives. Unfortunately his mother's brother
was an insurrecto. But the boy wanted very much to become a priest,
so he set out for Mount Banahaw to look for his uncle.

"As he was walking along the mountain road, he came across his
uncle, but neither knew the other. The uncle had a long bolo in his
hand. 'Hold!' shouted the old man as the boy came in sight. 'Hands up!'

"'Mercy!' entreated the young man. 'I am a friend, not an enemy.'

"'What are you doing in this part of the country, then? Have you
come to spy?'

"'No,' said the youth. 'I have come in search of my uncle named
Paulino, general of the Patriots of Banahaw.'

"'And who are you to seek for him? What is your name?'

"'Federico.'

"The uncle stared at him. 'If that is so,' he said, 'I am the man
you are looking for. I am your uncle.' Federico was amazed, but was
very glad to have found his uncle so easily. Then the old man took
his nephew to the cave where he dwelt with his soldiers.

"Weeks passed by, months elapsed, but Federico never thought of
going back to his mother. So one day Federico's father went out to
seek for his son, and soon found him and his uncle. The father, too,
remained there with the soldiers, and never thought of going back home.

"One day Josefa received news that the bandits of Banahaw had been
caught by the government authorities. Among the prisoners were her
brother Paulino, her son Federico, and her husband. The captives were
to be executed at sunrise without any trial. Josefa hurried to the
capitan general, and pleaded with him to release her husband, her
son, and her brother. Besides, the woman presented the officer with
some gifts. She pleaded so hard, that finally the capitan general
was moved with pity. He consented to release one of the prisoners,
but one only. Josefa did not know what to do. Whom should she select
of the three,--her husband, the other half of her life; her son, the
fruit of her love; or her brother, that brother who came from the same
womb and sucked the same milk from the same mother? To take one would
mean to condemn the other two to death. She wished to save them all,
but she was allowed to select only one."


"If you, Antonio, were in her place, whom would you select?" Antonio
did not speak for some moments, but with knitted eyebrows looked up
to the ceiling and tried to think of the answer.

"Nonsense!" exclaimed the grandfather; "you cannot find the answer
in the ceiling! You really do not know, do you? Very well. I will
give you until next Tuesday to get your answer. You have one week in
which to think it out. Tell me the correct answer before you go to
school on that day."

When Tuesday came, Antonio had gotten the answer to his grandfather's
puzzle-tale; but the rascally little boy deceived the old man: he
had sought the information from his uncle.

"If you were in the place of the woman," asked the playful grandfather
with a smile on his face, "whom would you select?" Antonio timidlv
said that he would select the brother.

"You are only guessing, aren't you?" said old Julian doubtfully.

"Bah! No, sir!" said the boy. "I can give you a reason for my
selection."

"Very well, give your reason, then."

"The woman would be right in selecting her brother"--

"Because"--

"Because, what to a woman is a husband? She can marry again; she can
find another."

"That is true," said the old man.

"And what to a woman is her son? Is it not possible to bear another
one after she marries again?"

"To be sure," said old Julian.

"But," continued the boy, raising his voice, "is it possible for her
to bring into the world another brother? Is it possible? The woman's
parents were dead. Therefore she would be right in selecting her
brother instead of her husband or her son."

"Exactly so, my boy," returned the satisfied old man, nodding his
gray head. "Since you have answered correctly, to-morrow I will tell
you another story."


Notes.

This saga-like story is of peculiar literary interest because of
its ancient connections. I know of no modern analogues; but there
are two very old parallels, as well as two unmistakable references
to the identical situation in our story which date from before the
Christian era, and also a Persian Märchen that goes back as far as
the twelfth century.

Herodotus (III, 119) first tells the story of a Persian woman who
chooses rather to save the life of her brother than of her husband
and children.

"When all the conspirators against Darius had been seized [i.e.,
Intaphernes, his children, and his family], and had been put in chains
as malefactors condemned to death, the wife of Intaphernes came
and stood continually at the palace-gates, weeping and wailing. So
Darius after a while, seeing that she never ceased to stand and weep,
was touched with pity for her, and bade a messenger go to her and say,
'Lady, King Darius gives thee as a boon the life of one of thy kinsmen;
choose which thou wilt of the prisoners.' Then she pondered a while
before she answered, 'If the king grants the life of one alone, I make
choice of my brother.' Darius, when he heard the reply, was astonished,
and sent again, saying, 'Lady, the king bids thee tell him why it is
that thou passest by thy husband and thy children, and preferrest to
have the life of thy brother spared. He is not so near to thee as thy
children, not so dear as thy husband.' She answered, 'O king! if the
gods will, I may have another husband and other children when these
are gone; but, as my father and mother are no more, it is impossible
that I should have another brother. That was my thought when I asked
to have my brother spared.' The woman appeared to Darius to have spoken
well, and he granted to her the one that she asked and her eldest son,
he was so pleased with her. All the rest he put to death."


This story from the Greek historian clearly supplied not merely
the thought but also the form of the reference in lines 909-912
of Sophocles'"Antigone." In Campbell's English translation of the
Greek play, the passage, which is put into the mouth of the heroine,
runs thus:--


"A husband lost might be replaced; a son,
If son were lost to me, might yet be born;
But with both parents hidden in the tomb,
No brother may arise to comfort me."


Chronologically, the next two occurrences of the story are Indian. In
the "Ucchanga-jataka" (Fausböll, No. 67, of uncertain date, but
possibly going back to the third century B.C.) we are told--


"Three husbandmen were by mistake arrested on a charge of robbery,
and imprisoned. The wife of one came to the King of Kosala, in whose
realm the event took place, and entreated him to set her husband at
liberty. The king asked her what relation each of the three was to
her. She answered, 'One is my husband, another my brother, and the
third is my son.' The king said, 'I am pleased with you, and I will
give you one of the three; which do you choose?' The woman answered,
'Sire, if I live, I can get another husband and another son; but,
as my parents are dead, I can never get another brother. So give me
my brother, sire.' Pleased with the woman, the king set all three
men at liberty."


In the Cambridge translation of this "Jataka," the verse reply of
the woman is rendered thus:--


"A son's an easy find; of husbands too
An ample choice throngs public ways. But where
With all my pains another brother find?"


In the "Ramayana," the most celebrated art epic of India, we are
told how, in the battle about Lanka, Lakshmana, the favorite brother
and inseparable companion of the hero Rama, is to all appearances
killed. Rama laments over him in these words: "Anywhere at all I
could get a wife, a son, and all other relatives; but I know of no
place where I might be able to acquire a brother. The teaching of
the Veda is true, that Parjanya rains down everything; but also is
the proverb true that he does not rain down brothers." (Ed. Gorresio,
6 : 24, 7-8.) This parallel was pointed out by R. Pischel in "Hermes,"
28 (1893) : 465.

The Persian Märchen alluded to above is cited by Th. Nöldeke in
"Hermes," 29 : 155.

In this story the wife, when she is given the opportunity to
choose which she will save of her three nearest relatives,--i.e.,
her husband, her son, and her brother, who have been selected to be
the food for the man-eating snake that grows from the devil-prince
Dahak's shoulder,--says, "I am still a young woman. I can get another
husband, and it may happen that I might have another child by him:
so that the fire of separation I can quench somewhat with the water
of hope, and for the poison of the death of a husband find a cure
in the antidote of the survival of a son; but it is not possible,
since my father and mother are dead, for me to get another brother;
therefore I bestow my love on him [i.e., she chooses the brother]." The
Dahak is moved to pity, and spares her the lives of all three.


The riddle form in which our story is cast is possibly an invention
of the narrator; but folk-tales ending thus are common (see notes to
No. 12). Again, our story fails to state whether or not all three men
were pardoned. The implication is that they were not. The localization
of the events seems to point either to a long existence of the story
in La Laguna province or to exceptional adaptive skill on the part
of the narrator.



TALE 32


With One Centavo Juan Marries a Princess.

Narrated by Gregorio Frondoso, a Bicol, who heard the story from
another Bicol student. The latter said that the story was traditional
among the Bicols, and that he had heard it from his grandfather.

In ancient times, in the age of foolishness and nonsense, there lived
a poor gambler. He was all alone in the world: he had no parents,
relatives, wife, or children. What little money he had he spent on
cards or cock-fighting. Every time he played, he lost. So he would
often pass whole days without eating. He would then go around the town
begging like a tramp. At last he determined to leave the village to
find his fortune.

One day, without a single cent in his pockets, he set out on his
journey. As he was lazily wandering along the road, he found a centavo,
and picked it up. When he came to the next village, he bought with his
coin a small native cake. He ate only a part of the cake; the rest he
wrapped in a piece of paper and put in his pocket. Then he took a walk
around the village; but, soon becoming tired, he sat down by a little
shop to rest. While resting, he fell asleep. As he was lying on the
bench asleep, a chicken came along, and, seeing the cake projecting
from his pocket, the chicken pecked at it and ate it up. Tickled by
the bird's beak, the tramp woke up and immediately seized the poor
creature. The owner claimed the chicken; but Juan would not give it up,
on the ground that it had eaten his cake. Indeed, he argued so well,
that he was allowed to walk away, taking the chicken with him.

Scarcely had he gone a mile when he came to another village. There
he took a rest in a barber-shop. He fell asleep again, and soon a
dog came in and began to devour his chicken. Awakened by the poor
bird's squawking, Juan jumped up and caught the dog still munching its
prey. In spite of the barber's protest and his refusal to give up his
dog, Juan seized it and carried it away with him. He proceeded on his
journey until he came to another village. As he was passing by a small
house, he felt thirsty: so he decided to go in and ask for a drink. He
tied his dog to the gate and went in. When he came out again, he found
his dog lying dead, the iron gate on top of him. Evidently, in its
struggles to get loose, the animal had pulled the gate over. Without
a word Juan pulled off one of the iron bars from the gate and took
it away with him. When the owner shouted after him, Juan said,
"The bar belongs to me, for your gate killed my dog."

When Juan came to a wide river, he sat down on the bank to rest. While
he was sitting there, he began to play with his iron bar, tossing
it up into the air, and catching it as it fell. Once he missed, and
the bar fell into the river and was lost. "Now, river," said Juan,
"since you have taken my iron bar, you belong to me. You will have
to pay for it." So he sat there all day, watching for people to come
along and bathe.

It happened by chance that not long after, the princess came to
take her bath. When she came out of the water, Juan approached her,
and said, "Princess, don't you know that this river is mine? And,
since you have touched the water, I have the right to claim you."

"How does it happen that you own this river?" said the astonished
princess.

"Well, princess, it would tire you out to hear the story of how I
acquired this river; but I insist that you are mine."

Juan persisted so strongly, that at last the princess said that she
was willing to leave the matter to her father's decision. On hearing
Juan's story, and after having asked him question after question,
the king was greatly impressed with his wonderful reasoning and wit;
and, as he was unable to offer any refutation for Juan's argument,
he willingly married his daughter to Juan.


Notes.

I know of no complete analogues of this droll; but partial variants,
both serious and comic, are numerous. In our story a penniless,
unscrupulous hero finds a centavo, and by means of sophistical
arguments with foolish persons makes more and more profitable
exchanges until he wins the hand of a princess. A serious tale of a
clever person starting with no greater capital than a dead mouse, and
finally succeeding in making a fortune, is the "Cullaka-setthi-jataka,"
No. 4. This story subsequently made its way into Somadeva's great
collection (Tawney, 1 : 33-34), "The Story of the Mouse Merchant"
(ch. VI). Here it runs approximately as follows:--

A poor youth, whose mother managed to give him some education in
writing and ciphering, was advised by her to go to a certain rich
merchant who was in the habit of lending capital to poor men of good
family. The youth went; and, just as he entered the house, that rich
man was angrily talking to another merchant's son: "You see this dead
mouse here upon the floor; even that is a commodity by which a capable
man would acquire wealth; but I gave you, you good-for-nothing fellow,
many dinars, and, so far from increasing them, you have not even been
able to preserve what you got." The poor stranger-youth at once said
to the merchant that he would take the dead mouse as capital advanced,
and he wrote a receipt for it. He sold the mouse as cat-meat to a
certain merchant for two handfuls of gram. Next he made meal of the
gram, and, taking his stand by the road, civilly offered food and
drink to a band of wood-cutters that came by. Each, out of gratitude,
gave him two pieces of wood. This wood he sold, bought more gram with
a part of the price, and obtained more wood from the wood-cutters the
next day, etc., until he was able in time to buy all their wood for
three days. Heavy rains made a dearth of wood, and he sold his stock
for a large sum. Then he set up a shop, began to traffic, and became
wealthy by his own ability. Now he had a golden mouse made, which he
sent to the rich merchant from whom he had gotten his start, and that
merchant bestowed the hand of his daughter on the once poor youth.


The comic atmosphere, it will be seen, is altogether absent from this
Buddhistic parable.

A slight resemblance to our story may be traced in Bompas, No. XLIX,
"The Foolish Sons," where the clever youngest (of six brothers)
manages to acquire ten rupees, starting with one anna. He proceeds
by "borrowing," and paying interest in advance. The trick used here
is the same as that practised on the foolish wife in "Wise Folks"
(Grimm, No. 104), where a sharper buys three cows, and leaves one with
the seller as a pledge for the price of the three (see Bolte-Polívka,
2 : 440 f.).

Much closer parallels than the preceding, to the incidents of out
story, are to be found in a cycle of tales discussed by Bolte-Polívka
(2 : 201-202) in connection with "Hans in Luck" (Grimm, No. 83). It
will be recalled that in the Grimm story the foolish Hans exchanges
successively gold for horse, horse for cow, cow for pig, pig for
goose, goose for grindstone, which he is finally glad to get rid of by
throwing it into the water. "A counterpart of this story," say Bolte
and Polívka, "is the Märchen of the 'profitable exchange,' in which
a poor man acquires from another a hen because it has eaten up a pea
or millet-seed that belonged to him; for the hen he gets a pig which
has killed it; for the pig, a cow; for the cow, a horse. But when he
finally levies his claim for damages upon a girl, and places her in
a sack, his luck changes: strangers liberate the maiden without the
knowledge of her captor, and put in her place a big dog, which falls
upon him when he opens the sack." It is to be noted that the cycle
as here outlined consists really of two parts,--the "biter biting"
and the "biter bit." Cosquin (2 : 209) believes that the last two
episodes--the maiden gained by chicanery, and the substitution of an
animal for her in the sack--form a separate theme not originally a part
of the cumulative motive; and, to prove his belief, he cites a number
of Oriental tales containing the former, but lacking the cumulative
motive (ibid., 209-212). Cosquin seems to be correct in this; although,
on the other hand, he is able to cite only one story (Rivière, p. 95)
in which there is not some trace of the "biter-bit" idea. Moreover,
even in the animal stories belonging to this group,--and he analyzes
Stokes, No. 17, and Rivière, p. 79,--the animal-rogue meets with an
unlucky end. The same is true of Steel-Temple, No. 2, "The Rat's
Wedding." In another Indian story, however, "The Monkey with the
Tom-Tom" (Kingscote, No. XIV, a rather pointless tale), the monkey,
whose last exchange is puddings for a tom-tom, is left at the top of
a tree lustily beating his drum and enumerating his clever tricks. A
very similar story is to be found in Rouse, p. 132, "The Monkey's
Bargains." It will thus be seen that Bolte and Polívka's analysis holds
for the larger number of human hero tales of this cycle, as well as for
the animal tales; but that the first half of the sequence of events,
where the hero's good luck is continually on the increase, is also
to be found as a separate story,--Kingscote's, Rouse's, and our own.

The Filipino version appears to be old, and I am inclined to
think that it is native; that is, if any stories may be called
native. Several facts point to the primitiveness of the tale: (1)
the local color and realistic touches, slight though they are; (2)
the non-emphasis of the comic possibilities of the situations; (3)
the somewhat unsystematic arrangement of incidents, the third demand
and exchange (iron rod for dead dog) not appearing to be an upward
progression; (4) the crudity of invention displayed in this same third
exchange (though an iron-picketed fence seems modern). My reasons for
thinking our story not imported from the Occident are the differences
in beginning, middle, and end between it and the European versions
cited by Bolte-Polívka (loc. cit.). The good luck coming to the hero
from the exchange of dead animals suggests a distant basic connection
between our story and the "Jataka," although it must be admitted that
the idea could occur independently to many different peoples.


TALE 33


The Three Humpbacks.

Narrated by Pacita Cordero, a Tagalog from Pagsanjan, Laguna, who
heard the story from her lavandera, or washer-woman.

Pablo was badly treated by his older brothers Pedro and Juan. The
coarsest food was given to him. His clothes were ragged. He slept on
the floor, while his two brothers had very comfortable beds. In fact,
he was deprived of every comfort and pleasure.

In the course of time this unfortunate youth fell in love with
a well-to-do girl, and after a four-years engagement they were
married. Thus Pablo was separated from his brothers, to their great
joy. Pedro and Juan now began spending their money lavishly on
trifles. They learned how to gamble. Pablo, however, was now living
happily and out of want with his wife. Every morning he went to fish,
for his wife owned a large fishery.

One day, as Pablo was just leaving the house at the usual hour to
go fishing, he said to his wife, "Wife, if two humpbacks like myself
ever come here, do not admit them. As you know, they are my brothers,
and they used to treat me very badly." Then he went away. That very
afternoon Pedro and Juan came to pay their brother a visit. They
begged Marta, Pablo's wife, to give them some food, for they were
starving. They had squandered all their money, they said. Marta was
so impressed by the wretched appearance of her brothers-in-law, that
she admitted them despite her husband's prohibition. She gave them
a dinner. When they had finished eating, she said to them, "It is
now time for my husband to come home. He may take vengeance on you
for your past unkindness to him, if he finds you here, so I'll hide
you in two separate trunks. You stay there till to-morrow morning,
and I'll let you out when my husband is gone again."

She had scarcely locked the trunks when Pablo entered. He did not find
out that his brothers had been there, however. The next morning Pablo
went to his work, as usual. Marta had so much to do about the house
that day, that she forgot all about Pedro and Juan. The poor boys,
deprived of air and food, died inside the trunks. Not until two days
later did Marta think of the two humpbacks. She ran and opened the
trunks, and found their dead bodies inside. Her next thought was how
to dispose of them. At last a plan occurred to her. She called to her
neighbor, and asked him to come bury one of her brothers-in-law who
had just died in her house. She promised to pay him five pesos when
he came back from his work.

The neighbor lifted the heavy body of Pedro, and, putting it on his
shoulder, carried it away to a far place. There he dug a hole that
was waist deep, put the corpse into it, and covered it up. Then he
hastened back to Marta, and said, "Madam, I have buried the dead man
in a very deep grave."

"No, you have not," said Marta. "What is that lying over there?" and
she pointed to the corpse of Juan.

"That's very strange!" exclaimed the neighbor, scratching his
head. "You are very artful," he said to the dead body of Juan. He
was very angry with the corpse now, for he had not yet received his
pay. So he bore the corpse of Juan to the seashore. He got a banca
[89] and dug a very deep grave beneath the water. Then he said to
the corpse, "If you can come out of this place, you are the wisest
person in the world." He then returned to Marta's house.

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