The Following 99 Folktales Were Collected from Storytellers in Tamil
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The following 99 folktales were collected from storytellers in Tamil Nadu in the mid- 1990s by Stuart Blackburn, and were among those published in his book, Moral Fictions: Tamil Folktales from the Oral Tradition, Folklore Fellows Communications No. 278, Helsinki, Finland: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 2005. The stories were told in Tamil, and were translated into English. Stuart Blackburn’s commentaries on the stories appear in the book, but are not included here. Story Page 1. Fraternal Unity 4 2. Straightening a Dog's Tail 6 3. Tenali Raman 8 4. The Guru and His Disciple 10 5. The Abducted Princess 14 6. A Brahmin Makes Good 19 7. A Cruel Daughter-in-Law 21 8. A Mosquito's Story 23 9. Loose Bowels 25 10. The Bouquet 28 11. Killing the Monkey-Husband 32 12. A Dog's Story 33 13. Poison Him, Marry Him 35 14. The Disfigured Eye 37 15. Family of the Deaf 39 16. A Thousand Flies in a Single Blow 40 17. A Parrot's Story 42 18. Four Thieves 43 19. The Blinded Heroine 45 20. A Daughter-in-Law's Revenge 48 21. The Three Diamonds 50 22. The Kind and the Unkind Girls 52 23. The Singing Bone 54 24. The Fish-Brother 56 25. The Story of a Little Finger 57 26. Cinderella 60 27. Animal Helpers 62 28. The Clever Sister 64 29. A Flea's Revenge 65 30. The Story of Krsna 66 31. The Seventh Son Succeeds 69 32. The Prince Who Understood 72 Animal Languages 33. A Dog, a Cat, and a Mouse 75 34. Three Golden Sons 77 35. A Princess Becomes a Monkey 79 36. Disobedient Muthirali 84 37. A Mistreated Stepdaughter 89 38. Nalla Tambi 92 39. The Rat-Wife 97 40. Sattitalaicci 100 41. Selling Yogurt for Pearls 103 42. The Sandalwood Merchant's Daughter 106 and the Kumkum Merchant's Son 43. The Fish-Boy and His Wife 108 44. Two Cheats 112 2 45. "Claw-Paw": the Story of a Goatherd 114 46. Rescuing a Princess from the Underworld 115 47. The Bouquet 117 48. The Magic Ring 122 49. The Pomegranate and the Magician 125 50. Eclipse of the Sun 127 51. The Fake-Horse 130 52. Outwitting Thieves 133 53. The Slandered Sister 134 54. "Life is Tough, Even When We're Dead" 136 55. A Pair of Cakes 137 56. Brother, Sister, and Snake 143 57. The Squirrel-Brother 145 58. A Cruel Mother-in-Law 148 59. A Cruel Daughter-in-Law 150 60. A Hunter's Story 151 61. An Overzealous Servant 153 62. A Tale of Greed 154 63. A Clever Daughter 155 64. The Clever Wife Recovers the Jewels 158 65. The Power of Jealousy 160 66. The Four Friends 163 67. The Great Indian Scientists 164 68. The Dummy Mother-in-Law 165 69. A Farmer's Daughter's Riddle 166 70. Great Desire Breeds Great Disaster 167 71. A Never-Do-Well Succeeds 169 72. The Cruel Sisters-in-Law 171 73. Dying for a Dosai 172 74. The Crow and Sparrow 173 75. Saiva Wife and Vaisnava Husband 174 76. Misfortune Strikes 175 77. A Thousand Parrots 178 78. The Prophecy of Three Wives 181 79. A Husband's Food Craving 185 80. Rama’s Best Devotee 186 81. A Clever Woman's Riddle 187 82. Two Great Liars 189 83. The Beggars' Pact 190 84. Searching for the Secret of Food Charity 191 85. A Chain Tale 195 86. All Because of a Single Pea 197 87. A Dog's Story 198 88. The Elusive Thief 201 89. The Turtle Prince 205 90. Broken Mirrors 209 91. "Dead or Alive, He Cheated Us" 210 92. The Kunniberry Girl 212 93. The Raksasi-Queen 214 94. Peacock Beauty 216 95. Young Nagammal, the Snake-Girl 220 96. Breaking Coconuts at the Temple 225 97. A Story Told by a Wooden Doll 227 98. The Sixteen Wooden Blocks 229 99. Rose Bush over the Grave 232 3 Storytelling Sessions Page Storytellers: Ettirajalu, Vanamayilu, Celvi. 4 Karaiyamputtur and Pakur, Pondicherry (stories 1-7) Storytellers: Vijayalakshmi, Kalaicelvi, Alli. 23 Panaiyakkottai, Thanjavur District (stories 8-29) Storytellers: Velliyamma, Nakarattinam, Nevvi. 66 Melalavu, Madurai District (stories 30-43) Storytellers: Tirunanam, Jeyaraman, 112 Nilavati, Puspavalli, Celvantiran, Kamala, Suppiramaniyan, Mallika. Sakkottai, Thanjavur District (stories 44-57) Storytellers: Kariyaperummal, Arunan. 148 Thanjavur, Thanjavur District (stories 58-65) Individual Tellings 163 (stories 66-99) 4 1. FRATERNAL UNITY In a certain town, three brothers lived together after their father passed away. Soon it was time to divide the assets, the house and all the land. Now the youngest brother was lame, and his older brothers spoke among themselves, "Why should we give the gimp a full share? We'll give him the worst land and when we partition the house, we'll give him the section with the weak walls. Then we'll give him those mangy, old bullocks for ploughing." When they gave this to the cripple, his wife said, "What's this! They gave you the scrub land and kept the fertile land for themselves!" She picked a fight with him like this, but he scolded her, "Fool! If it's given by god, it will pour through the roof. Just mind that advice and shut up because my brothers are good fellows." That's what he said: "If it's given by god, it will pour through the roof." A heavy rain fell. So the brothers hitched their bullocks and ploughed the fields, but the lame fellow with his emaciated bullocks bumped along dragging his bad leg. What they could do in two days he needed four days to complete. When the field was ready, he took some sesame seeds to his wife and said, "Fry these." "What? You think fried seeds will sprout?" "Don't talk back; just do what I say." Thinking there was no point in arguing with him, she fried the seeds and gave them to her husband. He went out and threw them everywhere, all over the field, without knowing what he was doing. That night - you must understand that ants love fried food and of course a sesame seed doesn't normally smell, but when it's fried, it smells wonderful. So that night all the ants came, not just one kind of ant but all kinds - little ones, big ones, red ones, all of them. They came in huge numbers, like an army, and marched into the lame brother's field and ate his seeds. Not a single seed was left uneaten. Then one of big ants said to the others, "This isn't right. He's a cripple, and we've eaten all his seeds. We were hungry, but this is wrong. Now what shall we do?" Another ant said, "Over there are the seeds in his brothers' fields; let's put them in the cripple's field." And that's what they did: they went as a huge army and rolled the seeds from the brothers' fields into the cripple's field. In about a week, the sesame seeds began to sprout up everywhere in the cripple's field, but nothing grew in his brothers' field! How could anything grow? There weren't any seeds! So they called their little brother, "Tambi, your field is growing nicely but ours hasn't grown at all." "That's right. You see, I roasted the seeds first." "Roasted them! But that'd ruin them." "Suit yourself, but that's what I did. Go ask my wife if you don't believe me." So the brothers bought seeds, roasted them and scattered them in their fields, but the ants came again and ate them. That year, when the youngest brother harvested four bushels of sesame, he gave one to each of his brothers and kept two for himself and his wife. You see, he really loved his brothers and wouldn't listen to anything his wife might say against them. But his brothers, well, they were determined to keep him at a distance. One night when the moon was very bright and his wife went out to make cow dung cakes, she saw seven pots of gold, just sitting there on the ground! She ran back to her husband out of breath and said, "Quick! Get a bullock ready! I found seven pots of gold! Got to drag it back here and bury it. Hurry!" 5 "Fool. Why should we go drag anything in the middle of the night? Remember what I said: 'If it's god-given it will come through the roof.'" "He's useless," she thought and went to her brothers-in-law and said, "There's seven pots of gold over there and my husband doesn't want it, so you might as well go get it." The brothers ran off and saw the seven pots, each covered by a plate; lifting one plate, they looked inside - and saw that the pot was crawling with snakes and scorpions. "I see," they thought, "our brother tried to kill us with this little trick. Thought we'd take the pots home, open them and get bitten. Can't let him get away with this." They put the lid back on the pot, took them all to his house where they climbed a ladder and then threw the seven pots through his roof! The pots crashed into his house, but when they hit the floor, jewels, emeralds, rubies, and gold coins lay scattered everywhere! That's what he had told his wife, hadn't he? "See what god has given us," he said to her.