Royal wisdom and trickery (Following folktales around the world 190. - Myanmar)

Today I continue the blog series titled Following folktales around the world! If you would like to know what the series is all about, you can find the introduction post here. You can find all posts here, or you can follow the series on Facebook!

The Snake Prince, and Other Stories
Burmese folk tales
Edna Ledgard
Interlink Books, 2000.

I usually love Interlink folktale collections, but this one was not my favorite. Not because of the stories - they were great - but rather the collector's attitude. Edna Ledgard is the child of American Baptist missionaries who spent the first 9 years of her life in Burma in the 1930s. She has love and nostalgia for the country, which colors this book with romantic notions as well. In addition, she says the morals of these tales "had to be changed for Western audiences" (ouch). According to Buddhist tradition, villains don't necessarily have to be punished at the end of folktales, because everyone is aware they will be punished in the next life. Ledgard, however, added all kinds of arbitrary punishments to the end of the tales, for "improvement" (including a dragon climbing out of the sea and eating the greedy rich man). At least she tells us in the Notes what she changed, but still, not ideal for a folktale collection.

Highlights

There were several great tales in the book. One of my favorites was Princess Learned-in-the-Law, who rendered judgment in classic tales such as "smell of fool, clinking of coins." I also loved the legend about the Magic Pincers, which cut off people's hands if they lied - until a young monk tricked them on a technicality, proving that blind tools can't always render justice.

My top favorite tale, however, was The Shy Quilt Bird. The Lion, king of the land animals, agrees to fight the evil Naga, ruler of the seas. The animals of the land decide to work together to save their king, lead by the wise trickster, Golden Rabbit. They make a plan to pretend they are the giant Galon bird to scare the Naga off, helped by the giant but shy Quilt Bird, who, by the end of the story, turns into the tiny wren. It is a lovely cooperation, community, and teamwork tale, and it became an instant favorite in my repertoire. 

Connections

There was a snake-husband story that appears in multiple countries around Southeast Asia - here, an old woman sold her daughter to a snake for some fresh fruit.

The resident trickster is Golden Rabbit, who had a tale similar to Mouse Deer stories I know.

Where to next?
Laos!

Oil sold to iguana (WTF - Weird Things in Folktales)

Welcome to my A to Z Challenge blog series titled WTF - Weird Things in Folktales! Find the introduction post (explaining the theme) here. Find all other participating blogs in the comments of each day's post on the main blog! You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Once again, there is no O in the Motif Index (probably because it looks too much like a zero). So I just searched for random terms that begin with O in the Motif Index, and came up with this gem:

J1852.1.2 Oil sold to iguana

This is a folktale from the Shan people in Southeast Asia, titled The Poor Man.

The tale tells about a poor man who wants to make some money. He hears about a city where there is a shortage of oil, so he borrows money from his friends, buys two gourds of oil, and sets out to sell it. On the way to the city he sees an iguana; the iguana sees him too and runs. The man chases the iguana, hoping to catch it for dinner, but the lizard disappears in a hole in the ground. The man starts digging - and lo and behold, finds three pots full of gold, and three pots full of silver. He tosses the gourds of oil away, takes the six pots, and sets out to the city.

When he gets to the marketplace, he wants to walk around, but the pots are very heavy. He goes to a house, and asks the people who live there to watch his pots, saying "there is only a little oil in them." He spends the day strolling around the market, enjoying the thought of being rich... and by the evening, he completely forgets which house he left the pots in. So he goes from door to door, asking for his pots of oil, but everyone denies having them.

Disappointed and tired, the poor man goes back to the hole of the iguana, hoping to find more gold. What he does find, however, is a day's wages in coin, and a written note: "The owner of the gold and silver thanks you for carrying his pots to the city."

The poor man goes home and remains poor.

(Read the story here.)

I have so many questions. Who was the owner of the pots? Was it the guy the poor men left the pots with? Was it someone else? Was it the iguana?!?!