Three brothers were left penniless after their parents die, so they decided to split up and make their way in the world, meeting again after ten years to compare stories.
The first brother traveled to India, where he became a magician. He got to know all the magic in India, and before ten years were up he learned to make a mirror that could show its bearer what was happening in far off lands as easily as it showed reflections.
The second traveled to the United States, and there he marveled at the
wonders of technology. He became a pilot and engineer, and before ten
years are up he built a fantastic plane that allowed him to circle the
globe.
The third brother went to Nigeria, where he became a farmer. He grew apple trees in the fertile soil, and these became widely known for their heartiness and nutrition. Before ten years were up he discovered that his apples could cure diseases, both mundane and fatal.
The tenth anniversary saw these brothers reunited back home. They compared stories, and each was impressed with the others' but thought his own the most miraculous. The mirror was the first to be tested, and it showed the brothers the goings-on in a castle in northern Europe. There, the king was distraught at the illness of his eldest daughter. He prayed for a miracle, because she would not last the night.
It was time to test the airplane, and the brothers flew to northern Europe. They arrived at the castle in time to test the apple. They told the king of their powers, and the king didn't believe them. They assured the king of their efficacy, but he made them promise that, should the apples effect no cure, they would not resist a hanging for giving the king false hope.
The apple, of course, did its job. The king was thrilled, and he allowed the princess to choose one of the brothers to marry. However, after spending some time with them, she could not decide from amongst them. She asked which of them had saved her, but each had equal claim to that deed: the mirror invented by the first had revealed the problem, the plane built by the second had carried them quickly enough to perform the deed, and the apple had been the cure. The princess deferred to her younger sister, who thought a bit and then asked the brothers a single question each: "Was your object used up by the deed? The first two answered that it was not, since the plane was intact and the mirror still showed visions. Only the third said yes, since the apple was gone. The younger princess then said the farmer should be the prince.
All agreed. The other men married the other daughters of the King, and everyone lived happily ever after.
That story comes from Dov Noy's collection Folktales of Israel, translated by Gene Baharav, and retold in my own words. Noy collected it from a man named Moshe Kaplan, who heard it from an unnamed Polish rabbi, probably in the late 1950s or early 60s. Noy places it under tale type 653A, "The Rarest Thing in the World." Pretty good little story, eh?
All-Star
Showing posts with label a story every day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label a story every day. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Thursday, February 16, 2017
Old Man Coyote
Old Man Coyote and the Buffalo, a Crow story collected in American Indian Trickster Tales, edited by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz.
Once, when Old Man Coyote saw some buffalo, he wanted to eat them and tried to think of a scheme to do this.
He approached the buffalo and said to them: "You buffalo are the most awkward of all animals--your heads are heavy, your hair legs are chopped off short, and your bellies stick out like a big pot."
The buffalo said to him: "We were made this way."
Old Man Coyote said to them: "I'll tell you what let's do--we will run a race." And all went to a level place with a steep cut bank at the end.
Old Man Coyote said to himself: "I will go and put my robe over the edge of the bank," and turning to the buffalo, he said, "Just as we get to the place where my robe is, we will all shut our eyes and see how far we can go with our eyes closed."
The race was started, and just before getting to the robe, all of the buffalo shut his eyes and jumped over the steep cut bank and were killed; and Old Man Coyote feasted off the dead buffalo.
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
American Tower of Babel
I've been trying to read a story, usually something new, every day.
It's sometimes tough to stick to it, especially when I'm reading
something much longer, but I'm trying to keep it up. I have lots of
collections of legends, folktales, myths, and short stories. When I find
the story worth writing about, I'll include it here.
So today I read a Choctaw story, collected in Stith Thompson's Tales of the North American Indians, page 263. Thompson calls it "The Tower of Babel," but the tower in the story is never named.
In the Choctaw story...well, it's pretty short, and I've got a moment, so here's the whole thing:
Many generations ago Aba, the good spirit above, created many men, all Choctaw, who spoke the language of the Choctaw and understood one another. These came from the bosom of the earth, being formed of yellow clay, and no men had ever lived before them. One day all came together and, looking upward, wondered what the clouds and the blue expanse above might be. They continued to wonder and talk among themselves and at last determined to endeavor to reach the sky. So they brought many rocks and began building a mound that was to have touched the heavens. That night, however, the wind blew strong from above and the rocks fell from the mound. The second morning they again began work on the mound, but as the men slept that night the rocks were again scattered by the winds. Once more, on the third morning, the builders set to their task. But once more, as the men lay near the mound that night, wrapped in slumber, the winds came with so great force that the rocks were hurled down on them.
The men were not killed, but when daylight came and they made their way from beneath the rocks and began to speak to one another, all were astounded as well as alarmed--they spoke various languages and could not understand one another. Some continued thenceforward to speak the original tongue, the language of the Choctaw, and from these sprung the Choctaw tribe. The others, who could not understand this language, began to fight among themselves. Finally, they were separated. The Choctaw remained the original people; the others scattered, some going north, some east, and others west, and formed various tribes. This explains why there are so many tribes throughout the country at the present time.
Thompson gives us the literary source: the Bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology, volume xlviii. No Choctaw narrator is named, as is common with old collections of this sort (Thompson's book was originally published in 1929, and the Bulletin was published twenty years before that).
The Babel parallel, or perhaps source, is striking, but for me the differences are more fascinating. Genesis 11 gets into the bricks used, instead of plain old stone, but here rocks are the building materials. I think it's also interesting that the Choctaw teller naturalizes the Choctaw language, and attributes violence to the people who no longer speak it. Also of interest is the different motivations given. In Genesis, the builders of the Tower want to "make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth," if I may quote the folks who put together the New International Version. In contrast, the Choctaw are merely curious. They wonder what's going on up there, with the blue sky and the clouds. Note the folktaleish repetition of three days and three attempts to build the tower, too.
Many myths account for differences between peoples, especially linguistic differences. I've been collecting these sorts of stories for a book project that will probably take the next two or three decades.
I'm no expert on Choctaw folklore. Tom Mould is. He's a folklorist who collected and annotated a book called Choctaw Tales. I remember seeing his dissertation on the shelf among the others at the Indian University Folklore department. It's called Choctaw Prophecy, and my guess is that his book of that name is a revision of that dissertation. Stith Thompson started the Folklore Institute at IU, which later became a full-fledged Folklore Department, and more recently the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. The department recently moved from a condemnable old fraternity house on 9th and Fess to the recently built and boringly named Classroom Office building on Third Street. I don't know if the bust of Stith Thompson, which sat for so long in the old building, has made the move. Or the dissertations.
So today I read a Choctaw story, collected in Stith Thompson's Tales of the North American Indians, page 263. Thompson calls it "The Tower of Babel," but the tower in the story is never named.
In the Choctaw story...well, it's pretty short, and I've got a moment, so here's the whole thing:
Many generations ago Aba, the good spirit above, created many men, all Choctaw, who spoke the language of the Choctaw and understood one another. These came from the bosom of the earth, being formed of yellow clay, and no men had ever lived before them. One day all came together and, looking upward, wondered what the clouds and the blue expanse above might be. They continued to wonder and talk among themselves and at last determined to endeavor to reach the sky. So they brought many rocks and began building a mound that was to have touched the heavens. That night, however, the wind blew strong from above and the rocks fell from the mound. The second morning they again began work on the mound, but as the men slept that night the rocks were again scattered by the winds. Once more, on the third morning, the builders set to their task. But once more, as the men lay near the mound that night, wrapped in slumber, the winds came with so great force that the rocks were hurled down on them.
The men were not killed, but when daylight came and they made their way from beneath the rocks and began to speak to one another, all were astounded as well as alarmed--they spoke various languages and could not understand one another. Some continued thenceforward to speak the original tongue, the language of the Choctaw, and from these sprung the Choctaw tribe. The others, who could not understand this language, began to fight among themselves. Finally, they were separated. The Choctaw remained the original people; the others scattered, some going north, some east, and others west, and formed various tribes. This explains why there are so many tribes throughout the country at the present time.
Thompson gives us the literary source: the Bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology, volume xlviii. No Choctaw narrator is named, as is common with old collections of this sort (Thompson's book was originally published in 1929, and the Bulletin was published twenty years before that).
The Babel parallel, or perhaps source, is striking, but for me the differences are more fascinating. Genesis 11 gets into the bricks used, instead of plain old stone, but here rocks are the building materials. I think it's also interesting that the Choctaw teller naturalizes the Choctaw language, and attributes violence to the people who no longer speak it. Also of interest is the different motivations given. In Genesis, the builders of the Tower want to "make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth," if I may quote the folks who put together the New International Version. In contrast, the Choctaw are merely curious. They wonder what's going on up there, with the blue sky and the clouds. Note the folktaleish repetition of three days and three attempts to build the tower, too.
Many myths account for differences between peoples, especially linguistic differences. I've been collecting these sorts of stories for a book project that will probably take the next two or three decades.
I'm no expert on Choctaw folklore. Tom Mould is. He's a folklorist who collected and annotated a book called Choctaw Tales. I remember seeing his dissertation on the shelf among the others at the Indian University Folklore department. It's called Choctaw Prophecy, and my guess is that his book of that name is a revision of that dissertation. Stith Thompson started the Folklore Institute at IU, which later became a full-fledged Folklore Department, and more recently the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. The department recently moved from a condemnable old fraternity house on 9th and Fess to the recently built and boringly named Classroom Office building on Third Street. I don't know if the bust of Stith Thompson, which sat for so long in the old building, has made the move. Or the dissertations.
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Some words
Some interesting words found in Clark Ashton Smith's "The City of the Singing Flame":
scoriac--like rough fragments of lava, slag
tarn--a small mountain lake
boscage--a mass of trees or shrubs; thicket; underwood; grove
stridulation--a shrill grating or creaking sound; chirp
sidereal--of, pertaining to, or concerned with with stars or constellations; measured by the stars
fortalice--a minor defensive fort
divagate--to wander or drift about; ramble; digress
A pretty great story. A little long, but it's lingering in my head. I keep thinking about the singing flame and what it means and why events unfold as they do. It's one of those stories that can have lots of applications, lots of implications. If you want to relate it to your life, it's not hard to do so. It's not an old-fashioned, rip-roaring adventure yarn. It's slow, contemplative. I liked it.
scoriac--like rough fragments of lava, slag
tarn--a small mountain lake
boscage--a mass of trees or shrubs; thicket; underwood; grove
stridulation--a shrill grating or creaking sound; chirp
sidereal--of, pertaining to, or concerned with with stars or constellations; measured by the stars
fortalice--a minor defensive fort
divagate--to wander or drift about; ramble; digress
A pretty great story. A little long, but it's lingering in my head. I keep thinking about the singing flame and what it means and why events unfold as they do. It's one of those stories that can have lots of applications, lots of implications. If you want to relate it to your life, it's not hard to do so. It's not an old-fashioned, rip-roaring adventure yarn. It's slow, contemplative. I liked it.
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