Filipino Popular Tales. Various

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ he mixed with water and put into a jar. The cook arrived, and everything was ready. The table was prepared, and the king and his family were called to eat. The queen and the king and the beautiful princess, who were used to wearing golden crowns set with diamonds and other precious stones, were then to be seen with sharp ugly horns on their heads. When the king discovered that they all had horns, he summoned the cook at once, and asked, “What kind of food did you give us?”

      “The same food that your Highness ate a week ago,” replied the cook, who was terrified to see the royal family with horns.

      “Cook, go and find a doctor. Don’t tell him or any one else that we have horns. Tell the doctor that the king wants him to perform an operation,” ordered the king.

      The cook set out immediately to find a doctor; but he was intercepted by the charcoal-maker, who was eager to hear the king’s order. “Where are you going? Say, cook, why are you in such a hurry? What is the matter?”

      “Don’t bother me!” said the cook. “I am going to find a doctor. The king and his family have horns on their heads, and I am ordered to find a doctor who can take them off.”

      “I can make those horns fall off. You needn’t bother to find a doctor. Here, try some of this food, cook!” said the helper, giving him some of the same food he had prepared for the king. The cook tried it, and it was good; but, to his alarm, he felt two horns on his head. To prevent rumors from reaching the ears of the king, the youth then gave the cook a glass of the water he had prepared, and the horns fell off. While the charcoal-maker was playing this trick on the cook, he related the story of his magical purse, and how he had lost it.

      “Change your clothes, then, and get ready, and I will present you to the king as the doctor,” said the cook.

      The helper then dressed himself just like a doctor of surgery, and was conducted by the cook into the king’s presence.

      “Doctor, I want you to do all you can, and use the best of your wisdom, to take off these horns from our heads. But before doing it, promise me first that you will not unfold the matter to the people; for my queen, my daughter, and I would rather die than be known to have lived with horns. If you succeed in taking them off, you shall inherit one-half of my kingdom and have the hand of my fair daughter,” said the king.

      “I do promise. But listen, O king! In order to get rid of those horns, you must undergo the severest treatment, which may cause your death,” replied the doctor.

      “It is no matter. If we should die, we would rather die hornless than live with horns,” said the king.

      After the agreement was written out, the doctor ordered the treatment. The king and the queen were to be whipped until they bled, while the princess was to dance with the doctor until she became exhausted. These were the remedies given by the doctor.

      While the king and queen were being whipped, the doctor who, we must remember, was the cook’s helper—went to the kitchen to get the jar of water which he had prepared. The cruel servants who were scourging the king and the queen took much delight in their task, and did not quit until the king and queen were almost lifeless. The doctor forgot the royal couple while he was dancing with the princess, and found them just about to die. He succeeded, however, in giving them some of the fruit-water he had made ready, and the horns fell off. The princess, exhausted, also asked for a drink when she stopped dancing, and the horns fell off her head too.

      A few days afterwards the king and the queen died, and the doctor succeeded to the throne, with the beautiful princess as his wife. Then the doctor told her that he was the poor charcoal-maker who had owned the magic purse that she had stolen from him. As soon as he was seated on the throne, he made his friend the cook one of his courtiers. Although the new king was uneducated and unrefined, he welcomed all wise men to his palace as his counsellors, and his kingdom prospered as it had never done under its previous rulers.

      Notes.

       Table of Contents

      Another Tagalog version, called “Pedro’s Fortunes” and narrated by Facundo Esquivel of Nueva Ecija, represents the hero as inheriting the inexhaustible purse from his father.

      Pedro, with his wealth, soon attracts the notice of the princess, who slyly wheedles his purse away from him. Bent on revenge, he sets out travelling. Hunger soon drives him to eat some beautiful blossoms he finds on a strange tree in the mountains. No sooner has he eaten, however, than horns grow out of his forehead. At first in despair, but later becoming philosophical, he eats some of the leaves of the tree. Horns disappear. Taking blossoms and leaves with him, he goes on. He finds another tree with blossoms similar to the first. He eats: fangs from upper jaw. Eats leaves from the same tree: fangs disappear. Takes with him specimens of both flowers and leaves. Third tree: blossoms tail-producing. When he reaches home, he makes a decoction of the three kinds of flowers, then goes to the palace and sells “lemonade from Paradise.” King, queen, and princess drink: horns, fangs, tails. All efforts to remove them vain. Proclamation that princess’s hand will be given to whoever can cure the royal family. Disguised as a doctor, Pedro cures king, queen, and princess with a decoction of the three kinds of leaves, first, however, demanding and getting back his purse. Pedro is married to princess.

      These two stories (No. 2 and the variant) belong to the type in which the hero loses a magic article (or three magic articles) through the trickery of a princess, but recovers it (them) again by the aid of fruits (blossoms) which, if eaten, cause bodily deformity—leprosy, horns, a tail, a long nose, transformation into an animal, or the like. The princess, a victim of one of these fruits, which the hero causes her to eat unwittingly, can be restored to her former beauty only by eating of another fruit which the hero, disguised as a physician, supplies on condition that the magic articles first stolen be given up. A detailed study of this cycle has been made by Antti Aarne (pp. 85–142). Aarne names the cycle “The Three Magic Articles and the Wonderful Fruit.” After an examination of some hundred and forty-five variants of the story, all but four of which are European, he concludes that the tale arose among the Celts (British Isles and France) and spread eastward (p. 135), and that the farther we go from these two lands, the more freely are the original details of the story handled (p. 137).

      The prototype of this folk-tale Aarne reconstructs as follows (pp. 124–125):—

      There are three brothers, soldiers. Each comes into the possession of a specific magic article. One obtains a purse which is never empty; the second, a horn which when blown raises an army; and the third, a mantle which transports its owner wherever he commands it to go. (The owner of the purse begins to lead such a luxurious life, that he becomes acquainted with the king and his family.) The king’s daughter deprives the hero of his magic purse. He gets from his brother the second magic article, but the same thing happens again: the princess steals the horn likewise. A third time the hero goes to the princess, taking the mantle given him by his brother. With the help of this, the hero succeeds in punishing the princess by transporting her to a distant island. But she cheats him again. In the magic mantle she wishes herself home, leaving him on the island. He happens upon an apple-tree. He eats some of the fruit, but notices with dismay that horns have grown from his head. After a time he finds other apples; and when he has eaten them, the horns disappear, and he regains his original form. Unrecognized, the youth sets out to sell to the king’s daughter some of the first apples. Without suspecting any evil, she eats them, and horns appear on her head. No one is able to cure her. Then the hero appears as a foreign physician at the court of the king, and makes ready his cure. He gives the princess enough of the good apple to cause the horns to decrease in size. In this way he compels her to give him back the stolen articles.

      The СКАЧАТЬ