Folk Tales of Chhattisgarh, India

Title

en_US Folk Tales of Chhattisgarh, India

Description

en_US First impression

Collected by Theophil H. Twente

Creator

en_US Twente, Theophil H. See all items with this value

Contributor

en_US Fyson, Dorothy R.

Date

2020-01-23T17:39:53Z

2019-06

en_US 1938

Date Available

2020-01-23T17:39:53Z

Date Issued

en_US 1938

Abstract

en_US As I suspected, this collection of 26 folk tales includes several fables. I count three. "The Frog and the Lizard" (9) has a frog who keeps doing unintelligent things like floating down the river with the current, sitting on thorns, or settling on a dunghill. When his lizard friend advises against each, the frog responds sharply. For example, when the lizard warns that the frog might be drowned, the frog answers "Let your mother and sister be drowned." The moral is that some people, when advised, retort with slanderous speech -- especially people who think themselves very religious. "The King Who Learned from a Cock" (13) is the story from the "1001 Nights" about a man who can understand animals' speech. "The Fox, the Tortoise and the Serpent" (40) is about how many plans each has in case of fire. The serpent answers "100," and the tortoise "20," while the fox has only one. Fire approaches. The serpent goes up a tree, saying "These are my 100 plans." The turtle crawls into a crack in the ground and says "See my 20 plans." The fox's one plan is to run. The fire consumes the former two, as the fox learns when he returns. "It is better to be honest than to pretend." Notice the reversal here: in the traditional Aesopic fable, it is the fox who claims many tricks. And it is the fox who ultimately is caught while the one-trick cat is safe up in the tree.

Identifier

en_US 12155 (Access ID)

uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10504/125851

Language

en_US eng

Publisher

en_US The Bodoni Press

en_US North Tonawanda, NY

Subject

en_US PZ8.1.T836Fo 1938 See all items with this value

en_US Title Page Scanned See all items with this value