Filipino Popular Tales. Various
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wife; Eulalio he chose to be water-carrier; Pedro, cook; Jacinto, wood-carrier; and Juan and Felipe, his companions in hunting.
When the next day came, the old man said that he was going hunting, and he told Juan and Felipe to bring along rice with them. In a little while they reached the mountains, and he told the two fools to cook the rice at ten o’clock. He then went up the mountain with his dogs to catch a deer. Now, his two companions, who had been left at the foot of the mountain, had never seen a deer. When Felipe saw a deer standing under a tree, he thought that the antlers of the deer were the branches of a small tree without leaves: so he hung his hat and bag of rice on them, but the deer immediately ran away. When the old man came back, he asked if the rice was ready. Felipe told him that he had hung his hat and the rice on a tree that ran away. The old man was angry, and said, “That tree you saw was the antlers of a deer. We’ll have to go home now, for we have nothing to eat.”
Meanwhile the five crazy fellows who had been left at home were not idle. Eulalio went to get a pail of water. When he reached the well and saw his image in the water, he nodded, and the reflection nodded back at him. He did this over and over again; until finally, becoming tired, he jumped into the water, and was drowned. Jacinto was sent to gather small sticks, but he only destroyed the fence around the garden. Pedro cooked a chicken without removing the feathers. He also let the chicken burn until it was as black as coal. Mateo and Francisco tried to keep the flies off the face of their old mistress. They soon became tired, because the flies kept coming back; so they took big sticks to kill them with. When a fly lighted on the nose of the old woman, they struck at it so hard that they killed her. She died with seemingly a smile on her face. The two fools said to each other that the old woman was very much pleased that they had killed the fly.
When the old man and his two companions reached home, the old man asked Pedro if there was any food to eat. Pedro said that it was in the pot. The old man looked in and saw the charred chicken and feathers. He was very angry at the cook. Then he went in to see his wife, and found her dead. He asked Mateo and Francisco what they had done to the old woman. They said that they had only been killing flies that tried to trouble her, and that she was very much pleased by their work.
The next thing the crazy fellows had to do was to make a coffin for the dead woman; but they made it flat, and in such a way that there was nothing to prevent the corpse from falling off. The old man told them to carry the body to the church; but on their way they ran, and the body rolled off the flat coffin. They said to each other that running was a good thing, for it made their burden lighter.
When the priest found that the corpse was missing, he told the six crazy fellows to go back and get the body. While they were walking toward the house, they saw an old woman picking up sticks by the roadside.
“Old woman, what are you doing here?” they said. “The priest wants to see you.”
While they were binding her, she cried out to her husband, “Ah! here are some bad boys trying to take me to the church.” But her husband said that the crazy fellows were only trying to tease her. When they reached the church with this old woman, the priest, who was also crazy, performed the burial-ceremony over her. She cried out that she was alive; but the priest answered that since he had her burial-fee, he did not care whether she was alive or not. So they buried this old woman in the ground.
When they were returning home, they saw the corpse that had fallen from the coffin on their way to the church. Francisco cried that it was the ghost of the old woman. Terribly frightened, they ran away in different directions, and became scattered all over Luzon.
Notes.
I have a Bicol variant, “Juan and his Six Friends,” narrated by Maximina Navarro, which is much like the story of “The Seven Crazy Fellows.”
In the Bicol form, Juan and his six crazy companions go bathing in the river. Episode of the miscounting. On the way home, the seven, sad because of the loss of one of their number, meet another sad young man, who says that his mother is dying and that he is on his way to fetch a priest. He begs the seven to hurry to his home and stay with his mother until he returns. They go and sit by her. Juan mistakes a large mole on her forehead for a fly, and tries in vain to brush it away. Finally he “kills it” with a big piece of bamboo. The son, returning and finding his mother dead, asks the seven to take her and bury her. They wrap the body in a mat, but on the way to the cemetery the body falls out. They return to look for the corpse, but take the wrong road. They see an old woman cutting ferns; and, thinking that she is the first old woman trying to deceive them, they throw stones at her. The story ends with the burial of this second old woman, whom the seven admonish, as they put her into the ground, “never to deceive any one again.”
These two noodle stories are obviously drawn from a common source. The main incidents to be found in them are (1) the miscounting of the swimmers and the subsequent correct reckoning by a stranger (this second part lacking in the Bicol variant); (2) the killing of the fly on the old woman’s face; (3) the loss of the corpse and the burial of the old fagot-gathering woman by mistake.
(1) The incident of not counting one’s self is found in a number of Eastern stories (see Clouston 1, 28–33; Grimm, 2 : 441). For a Kashmir droll recording a similar situation, where a townsman finds ten peasants weeping because they cannot account for the loss of one of their companions, see Knowles, 322–323.
(2) Killing of fly on face is a very old incident, and assumes various forms. In a Buddhist birth-story (Jātaka, 44), a mosquito lights on a man’s head. The foolish son attempts to kill it with an axe. In another (Jātaka, 45) the son uses a pestle. Italian stories containing this episode will be found in Crane, 293–294 (see also Crane, 380, notes 13–15). In a Bicol fable relating a war between the monkeys and the dragon-flies, the dragon-flies easily defeat the monkeys, who kill one another in their attempts to slay their enemies, that have, at the order of their king, alighted on the monkeys’ heads (see No. 57). Full bibliography for this incident may be found in Bolte-Polívka, 1 : 519.
(3) The killing of a living person thought to be a corpse come to life occurs in “The Three Humpbacks” (see No. 33 and notes).
Our story as a whole seems to owe nothing to European forms, though it has some faint general resemblances to the “Seven Swabians” (Grimm, No. 119). All three incidents of our story are found separately in India. Their combination may have taken place in the Islands, or even before the Malay migration.
Juan Manalaksan.
Narrated by Anicio Pascual of Arayat, Pampanga, who heard the story from an old Pampangan woman.
Once upon a time there lived in a certain village a brave and powerful datu who had only one son. The son was called Pedro. In the same place lived a poor wood-cutter whose name was Juan Manalaksan. Pedro was rich, and had no work to do. He often diverted himself by hunting deer and wild boars in the forests and mountains. Juan got his living by cutting trees in the forests.
One day the datu and his son went to the mountain to hunt. They took with them many dogs and guns. They did not take any food, however, for they felt sure of catching something to eat for their dinner. When they reached the mountain, Pedro killed a deer. By noon they had become tired and hungry, so they went to a shady place to cook their game. While he was eating, Pedro choked on a piece of meat. The father cried out loudly, for he did not know what to do for his dying son. Juan, who was cutting wood near by, heard the shout. He ran quickly to help Pedro, and by pulling the piece of meat out of his throat he saved Pedro’s life. Pedro was grateful, and said to Juan, “To-morrow come to my palace, and I will give you a reward for helping me.”
The next morning Juan set out for the palace. On his way he met an old woman, who asked him where he was going.
“I am going to Pedro’s