Filipino Popular Tales. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ be crushed, he nimbly jumps aside unobserved by his father, who thinks him killed. In f the tree is made to fall on the body of the sleeping hero. In g Darangdarang is told to stand beside the tree being cut: it falls on him. In all the stories but d the hero performs the feat of carrying home a tree on his shoulders (C¹). This episode is not uncommon in the European versions (see Panzer, op. cit., p. 35), but there the hero performs it while out at service. By the process of contamination these two incidents (B¹C¹) have worked their way into another Filipino story not of our cycle—the Visayan story of “Juan the Student” (see JAFL 19 : 104).

      4 B² Of the other methods of putting an end to the hero’s life, the “well” episode is the most common. In d and h father and son go to dig a well. When it is several metres deep, the father rains stones on the boy, who is working at the bottom, and leaves him for dead. In g the hero is sent down a well to find a lost ring; and while he is there, stones and rocks are thrown on him by his treacherous uncle. In all three the hero escapes, wiser, but none the worse, for his adventure (C³). This incident is very common in European members of the cycle. Bolte and Polívka (2 : 288–292) note its occurrence in twenty-five different stories.

      5 B³ In our story of “Carancal,” as has been remarked, and in e, the father commands his son to dive into deep water to see if the fishing-net is intact. Seeing blood and foam appear on the surface of the water, the father goes home, confident that he is rid of his son at last; but not long afterward, when the parents are eating, the hero appears, carrying on his shoulder a huge crocodile he has killed (C²). Analogous to this exploit is Sandapal’s capture of the king of the fishes, after his father has faithlessly pushed him overboard into the deep sea (c). The hero’s fight under water with a monstrous fish or crocodile, the blood and foam telling the story of a desperate struggle going on, reminds one strongly of Beowulf’s fight with Grendel’s dam.

      6 B⁴ In c, as a last resort, the father takes his son to the king, and has the best royal warrior fight the small boy. Sandapal conquers in five minutes. In f the father persuades his son to enter a wrestling-match held by the king. Juan easily throws all his opponents. With this incident compare the Middle-English “Tale of Gamelyn” (ll. 183–270) and Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” (act i, sc. ii).

      7 B⁵ In a the father, at the instigation of his wife, pushes large rocks from a cliff down upon his son by the seashore; but the son returns home later, rolling an immense bowlder that threatens to crush the house.

      8 D, D¹ Satisfied that he is no longer wanted at home, the hero sets out on adventures (a, g, h), taking along with him as a weapon a bolo five yards long (3), or a mighty bolo his father had given him—such a one that none but the hero could wield it (g), or a short stout club (h). In b the parents are not cruel to their son. The hero leaves home with the kindest of feeling for his father. He carries along with him an enormous top, so heavy that four persons could not lift it, and which, when spun, could be heard for miles; a long sword made by a blacksmith; and a wooden sheath for it made by the father. In the European versions of the story the weapons of the hero play an important part (see Panzer, 39–43). In c the story ends with the sale of Sandapal to the king. In d, after Sandangcal has escaped from the well, he comes home at night, and, finding his parents asleep, shakes the house. Thinking it is an earthquake, they jump from the windows in terror, and are killed. (This incident is also told as a separate story; see JAFL 20 : 305, No. 17.) After the hero has eaten up all the livestock he had inherited by their death, he sells his property and sets out on his travels. In e the father sells his greedy son to merchants. In f the parents finally give up attempts on their son’s life, and he goes away to join the army.

      9 E The companions—Carancal (3), Cabagboc (b), Sandangcal (d), and Dangandangan (g)—meet with extraordinary men, who accompany them on their travels. Cabagboc surpasses Cabual (“Breaker”) and Cagabot (“Uprooter”) in a contest of skill, and they agree to go with him as his servants. Dangandangan meets two strong men—Paridis, who uproots forests with his hands; and Aolo,9 the mighty fisher for sharks, whose net is so large that weights as big as mortars are needed to sink it. But neither of these two can turn the hero’s bolo over, hence they become his servants. Sandangcal (d), who nowhere in the story displays any great strength, rather only craftiness and greed, meets one at a time three strong fellows, whom he persuades to go with him by promising to double the sum they had been working for. These men are Mountain-Destroyer, who could destroy a mountain with one blow of his club; Blower, who could refresh the whole world with his breath; and Messenger, whose steps were one hundred leagues apart. This story, which seems to be far removed from the other tales of the group, has obviously been influenced by stories of the “Skilful Companions” cycle (see No. 11), where the hero merely directs his servants, doing none of the work himself. On the other hand, in 3, b, g, the wonderful companions are more or less impedimenta: the hero himself does all the hard work; they are merely his foil. For the “Genossen” in other Märchen of “John the Bear” type, see Panzer, 66–74; Cosquin, 1 : 9, 23–27.

      10 F¹ The adventure with the demon in the house in the forest, related in 3, is not found in the other Filipino versions of the tale. It is found in the Islands, however, in the form of a separate story, two widely different variants of which are printed below (4, [a] and [b]). This incident occurs in nearly all the folk-tales of the “John the Bear” type. Bolte and Polívka, in their notes to Grimm, No. 91 (2 : 301–315), indicate its appearance in one hundred and eighty-three Western and Eastern stories. As Panzer has shown (p. 77) that the mistreatment of the companions by the demon in the woods usually takes place while the one left behind is cooking food for the others out on the hunt, this motif might more exactly be called the “interrupted-cooking” episode than “Der Dämon im Waldhaus” (Panzer’s name for it). For Mexican and American Indian variants, see JAFL 25 : 244–254, 255. Spanish and Hindoo versions are cited by Bolte and Polívka (2 : 305, 314).It is pretty clear that the episode as narrated in our stories 3 and 4 owes nothing to the Spanish variants mentioned by Bolte.

      11 F²–⁵ The removal of an enormous stone is a task that Carancal has to perform twice. This exhibition of superhuman strength is of a piece with the strong hero’s other exploits, and has nothing in common with the transplanting of mountains by means of magic. (F³) The removal of a monstrous decaying fish is found in b as well as in 3. Cabagboc catches up the fish on the end of his sword, and hurls the carcass into the middle of the ocean. These exploits of the rock and the fish are not unlike the feat of the Santal hero Gumda, who throws the king’s elephant over seven seas (Campbell, 59). (F⁴) In b the task of slaying the man-eating giant falls upon Cabagboc, and his companion Uprooter, as the other comrade, Breaker, has been married to the king’s daughter. The giants are finally despatched by the hero, who cuts off their heads with his sword. In g the two strong men Paridis and Aolo are about to be slain by the man-eating giant against whom they have been sent by the hero to fight, when the hero suddenly appears and cuts off the monster’s head with his mighty bolo. (F⁵) The killing of a seven-headed dragon is a commonplace in folk-tales; a seven-headed man is not so usual. Cabagboc, after both of his comrades have been given royal wives, journeys alone. He comes to a river guarded by a seven-headed man who proves invulnerable for a whole day. Then a mysterious voice tells the hero to strike the monster in the middle of the forehead, as this is the only place in which it can be mortally wounded. Cabagboc does so and conquers. (F⁶) The hero’s wagering his strong men against a king’s strong men will be discussed in the notes to No. 11. The task of Pusong (a) has not been mentioned yet. After Pusong leaves home, he journeys by himself, and finally comes to a place where the inhabitants are feverishly building fortifications against the Moros, who are threatening the island. By lending his phenomenal strength, Pusong enables the people to finish their forts in one night. Out of gratitude they later make him their leader. Months later, when the Moros make their raid, they are defeated by Pusong, and captured with all their slaves. Among the wounded slaves are the parents of Pusong. On recognizing their son, they instantly die of shame for their past cruelty to him. Nor can the hero bear the shock any better than they: he too falls dead.ADDITIONAL NOTES.—The three weeks’ swim in 3 suggests Beowulf’s swim of a week and his fight СКАЧАТЬ