Filipino Popular Tales Part 63

KING CRAB. Because Crayfish was shouldering his lance.

CRAYFISH. Because Otter was coming down to devour my children.

Thus the cause of the death of the otter's children is traced to the otter himself.

Another Far-Eastern story from Laos (French Indo-China), ent.i.tled "Right and Might" (Fleeson, 27), is worth notice:--

A deer, frightened by the noise of an owl and a cricket, flees through the forest and into a stream, where it crushes a small fish almost to death. The fish complains to the court; and the deer, owl, cricket, and fish have a lawsuit. In the trial comes out this evidence: As the deer fled, he ran into some dry gra.s.s, and the seed fell into the eye of a wild chicken, and the pain caused by the seed made the chicken fly up against a nest of red ants. Alarmed, the red ants flew out to do battle, and in their haste bit a mongoose. The mongoose ran into a vine of wild fruit, and shook several pieces of it on the head of a hermit, who sat thinking under a tree. The hermit then asked the fruit why it fell, and the fruit blamed the mongoose; mongoose blamed ants; ants blamed chicken; chicken blamed seed; seed blamed deer; deer blamed owl. "O Owl!" asked the hermit, "why didst thou frighten the deer?" The owl replied, "I called but as I am accustomed to call; the cricket, too, called." Having heard the evidence, the judge says, "The cricket must replace the crushed parts of the fish and make it well," as he, the cricket, called and frightened the deer. Since the cricket is smaller and weaker than the owl or the deer, he had to bear the penalty.

TALE 61

THE GREEDY CROW.

Narrated by Agapito O. Gaa, from Taal, Batangas. He heard the story from an old Tagalog man who is now dead.

One day a crow found a piece of meat on the ground. He picked it up and flew to the top of a tree. While he was sitting there eating his meat, a kasaykasay (a small bird) pa.s.sed by. She was carrying a dead rat, and was flying very fast. The crow called to her, and said, "Kasaykasay, where did you get that dead rat that you have?" But the small bird did not answer: she flew on her way. When the crow saw that she paid no attention to him, he was very angry; and he called out, "Kasaykasay, Kasaykasay, stop and give me a piece of that rat, or I will follow you and take the whole thing for myself!" Still the small bird paid no attention to him. At last, full of greed and rage, the crow determined to have the rat by any means. He left the meat he was eating, and flew after the small creature. Although she was only a little bird, the Kasaykasay could fly faster than the crow--so he could not catch her.

While the crow was chasing the Kasaykasay, a hawk happened to pa.s.s by the tree where the crow had left his meat. The hawk saw the meat, and at once seized it in his claws and flew away.

Although the crow pursued the Kasaykasay a long time, he could not overtake her: so at last he gave up his attempt, and flew back to the tree where he had left his meat. But when he came to the spot, and found that the meat was gone, he was almost ready to die of disappointment and hunger. By and by the hawk which had taken the meat pa.s.sed the tree again. He called to the crow, and said to him, "Mr. Crow, do you know that I am the one who took your meat? If not, I will tell you now, and I am very sorry for you."

The crow did not answer the hawk, for he was so tired and weak that he could hardly breathe.

The moral of this story is this: Do not be greedy. Be contented with what you have, and do not wish for what you do not own.

Notes.

This fable appears to be distantly related to the European fable of "The Dog and his Shadow." More closely connected, however, is an apologue incorporated in a Buddhistic birth-story, the "Culladhanuggaha-jataka," No. 374. In this Indian story,--

An unfaithful wife eloping with her lover arrives at the bank of a stream. There the lover persuades her to strip herself, so that he may carry her clothes across the stream, which he proceeds to do, but never returns. Indra, seeing her plight, changes himself into a jackal bearing a piece of meat, and goes down to the bank of the stream. In its waters fish are disporting; and the Indra-jackal, laying aside his meat, plunges in after one of them. A vulture hovering near seizes hold of the meat and bears it aloft; and the jackal, returning unsuccessful from his fis.h.i.+ng, is taunted by the woman, who had observed all this, in the first gatha:--

"O jackal so brown! most stupid are you; No skill have you got, not knowledge, nor wit; Your fish you have lost, your meat is all gone, And now you sit grieving all poor and forlorn."

To which the Indra-jackal repeats the second gatha:--

"The faults of others are easy to see, But hard indeed our own are to behold; Thy husband thou hast lost, and lover eke, And now, I ween, thou grievest o'er thy loss."

The same story is found in the "Pancatantra" (V, viii; see Benfey, I : 468), whence it made its way into the "Tuti-nameh." It does not appear to be known in the Occident in this form (it is lacking in the "Kalilah and Dimnah").

Although the details of our story differ from those of the Indian fable of "The Jackal and the Faithless Wife," the general outlines of the two are near enough to justify us in supposing a rather close connection between them. I know of no European a.n.a.logues nearly so close, and am inclined to consider "The Greedy Crow" a native Tagalog tale. From the testimony of the narrator, it appears that the fable is not a recent importation.

TALE 62

THE HUMMING-BIRD AND THE CARABAO.

Narrated by Eusebio Lopez, a Tagalog from the province of Cavite.

One hot April morning a carabao (water-buffalo) was resting under the shade of a quinine-tree which grew near the mouth of a large river, when a humming-bird alighted on one of the small branches above him.

"How do you do, Friend Carabao?" said the humming-bird.

"I'm very well, little Hum. Do you also feel the heat of this April morning?" replied the carabao.

"Indeed, I do, Friend Carabao! and I am so thirsty, that I have come down to drink."

"I wonder how much you can drink!" said the carabao jestingly. "You are so small, that a drop ought to be more than enough to satisfy you."

"Yes, Friend Carabao?" answered little Hum as if surprised. "I bet you that I can drink more than you can!"

"What, you drink more than I can, you little Hum!"

"Yes, let us try! You drink first, and we shall see."

So old carabao, ignorant of the trick that was being played on him, walked to the bank of the river and began to drink. He drank and drank and drank; but it so happened that the tide was rising, and, no matter how much he swallowed, the water in the river kept getting higher and higher. At last he could drink no more, and the humming-bird began to tease him.

"Why, Friend Carabao, you have not drunk anything. It seems to me that you have added more water to the river instead."

"You fool!" answered the carabao angrily, "can't you see that my stomach is almost bursting?"

"Well, I don't know. I only know that you have added more water than there was before. But it is now my turn to drink."

But the humming-bird only pretended to drink. He knew that the tide would soon be going out, so he just put his bill in the water, and waited until the tide did begin to ebb. The water of the river began to fall also. The carabao noticed the change, but he could not comprehend it. He was surprised, and agreed that he had been beaten. Little Hum flew away, leaving poor old Carabao stupefied and hardly able to move, because of the great quant.i.ty of water he had drunk.

Notes.

That this story was not imported from the Occident is pretty clearly established by the existence in North Borneo of a tale almost identical with it. The Borneo fable, which is told as a "just-so" story, and is ent.i.tled "The Kandowei [rice-bird] and the Kerbau [carabao],"

may be found in Evans (pp. 423-424). It runs about as follows:--

The bird said to the buffalo, "If I were to drink the water of a stream, I could drink it all."--"I also," said the buffalo, "could finish it; for I am very big, while you are very small."--"Very well,"

said the bird, "tomorrow we will drink." In the morning, when the water was coming down in flood, the bird told the buffalo to drink first. The buffalo drank and drank; but the water only came down the faster, and at length he was forced to stop. So the buffalo said to the bird, "You can take my place and try, for I cannot finish." Now, the bird waited till the flood had gone down; and when it had done so, he put his beak into the water and pretended to drink. Then he waited till all the water had run away out of the stream, and said to the buffalo, "See, I have finished it!" And since the bird outwitted the buffalo in this manner, the buffalo has become his slave, and the bird rides on his back.

I know of no other Philippine versions, but I dare say that many exist between Luzon and Mindanao.