N is for Naga Mani (Gemstone Folklore)

Welcome to the 2022 A to Z Blogging Challenge! My theme this year is Gemstone Folklore. Because I love stories about shiny things. Read the introduction to the project here.

CHLOROPHANE

Chlorophane (also known as cobra stone) is a rare variety of the mineral fluorite, with fluorescent and thermoluminescent properties. When exposed to sunlight or heat, it emits a faint light in the dark.

Serpent stones

India, Sri Lanka, Bengal

Naga mani (cobra/serpent gem) is the Sanskrit name used for legendary "snake stones". They are one of the Nine Sacred Pearls of Vedic texts. In 1890 a Professor H. Hensoldt published a fascinating account of his journey to India in search of such stones. He found that some young cobras tended to "guard" fluorescent chlorophane pebbles (found in riverbeds) because their light attracted fireflies as easy prey. Various minerals and stones are seen as "cobra stones" or "Naga stones" all over India, and from there this ancient belief has spread all the way to Europe.

There are several folktales that feature such magical serpent stones. In The Golden Tree from Sri Lanka a king sends out his sons to find a magic tree. The youngest prince encounters a city threatened by a cobra that carries a magic gem. The prince manages to obtain the gem and kill the Naga King. The luminous gem allows him to find the three princesses who can transform into the magic tree together.

A similar adventure happens in the amazing story of Brave Seventee Bai from India. Here a brave young woman disguised as a man goes through many adventures, including one where she sets a trap for a cobra and takes its radiant diamond. Using the diamond she enters the snake's underwater gardens, and rescues a princess who agrees to marry her. (Don't get too excited, Seventee Bai rescues many princesses, but in the end gives them all to her husband. Boo.)

In the tale of Pakir Chand from Bengal, a prince and a minister's son acquire a serpent's luminous stone by similar means, and use it to enter an underwater realm where a princess resides. The jewel plays a key role in the rest of the story. In the Jataka tales a Brahman acquires a wish-granting serpent jewel from young Nagas who play "all night in the waters by its radiance."

There is also a tale from Thailand about a magician who creates rubies by injecting serpents with magic. (!) Any serpent that lives to be a thousand years old develops a radiant ruby in its forehead. The magician doesn't live long enough to see the result, but one in a thousand snakes survives, and causes a lot of trouble for a kingdom.

Sources: Read Hensoldt's account here. Read more about cobra pearls here.

If you had a wish-granting, light-giving magic stone, what would you use it for?

Jackals, spirits, Mouse Deer (Following folktales around the world 179. - Sri Lanka)

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!

Village folk-tales of Ceylon
H. Parker

Luzac, 1910.

The book contains 75 folktales; the whole series is actually three volumes, but this first one was hefty enough that I left the other two for later. At the beginning of the book we get a long, narrative introduction to life in the interior of Sri Lanka, from cultivation through beliefs, festivals, and games, all the way to costumes. The narrator talks about the local flora and fauna - we have returned to Mouse Deer territory! The introduction also elaborates on some interesting topics, such as the snake-charming tricks of the Telugu-speaking traveling communities (author calls them "gypsies"). It also talks about the caste system, since the stories in the book are arranged by caste (from higher to lower). 

The tales were collected by the author, sometimes from dictation, but mostly written down by locals and then translated to English. The translation is literal, and complicated expressions come with footnotes. In general, all the stories come with a lot of notes. While the author claims these stories are from an "untouched" Sinhalese tradition, in fact there are a lot of international types among them, and their South Asian (Indian, Punjabi, Bengali, etc.) parallels are duly noted.

Highlights 

There was a legend based in history about three questions that were posed to a vain king. A young man did not only answer the mysterious questions, but also managed to convince the king to give him the throne - and then never returned it. Another king was outwitted in the story of the talking horse, where he ordered a wise man to teach his horse human speech. The wise man promised to do so, in seven years - and before the deadline was up, luckily the king died. Talking about wits: there is a version of the Two thieves tale in this book that I really liked. They were competing for the hand of a young woman, but they made sure no one was harmed in the process - so the people they tricked could also laugh with them in the end.

The tale Aet-kanda Leniya was a beautiful story about a prince seeking his lost wife. It featured a female Rukh (by the name in the title of the story), and a whole lot of grateful animals: elephants, pigs, turtle doves, and fireflies. The notes of the story mention another version where the hero is helped by a young Rukh, a young demon dog, and a young bear... 

Among the trickster tales y favorite was that of the grateful jackal, saved from a giant snake by a boy. When the snake attacked the boy, the jackal ran for help, stealing people's clothes to lead them to the rescue. I also liked the tale about the boar who was raised in a village by a carpenter; when he escaped back into the wilderness, he taught the other boars how to build a tiger trap.

Connections

Despite the author's claims of "untouched" tradition, there are a whole lot of familiar tale types in the book. The creation story, for example, features the popular motifs of bringing soil up from the bottom of the ocean to create land, and also the claim that the sky used to be a lot closer to earth, until people chased it away.

Other familiar tale types included: magic bird heart (The turtle dove), princess who ran away with the wrong person but managed to overcome obstacles and find her love (The prince and the princess), false fortune-teller (Kurulu-gama Appu), seven blind queens (The prince and the yaksani), chain tale with a bird (The female quail), puss in boots (here with a monkey, and a man named Mr. Janel Sinna), Rapunzel (Wimali), brave little tailor (Sigiris Sinno, the giant), and brave maiden (The seven princesses; also combined with seven blind queens). The daughter of black storks reminded me of the Indian tale of Little Surya Bai, a beautiful Sleeping Beauty variant.  

The story of Senasura reminded me of the Nart sagas. Here a man was cursed, to only make one bushel of rice from every stack - so he started making very tiny stacks, and got rich on a technicality. 

The resident tricksters are Jackal and Mouse Deer. Mother Mouse Deer, for example, chased a leopard away by making him believe that her children loved leopard meat. Jackal outwitted crocodiles by making them shuttle him back and forth across the river in the promise of a wedding. He also played the wise helper's part in tale types such as "millstone gives birth to colt" and "ungrateful crocodile returned into trap." In turn, Jackal was outwitted by Turtle, more than once - and Turtle had his own misadventure with flying, when he could not keep his mouth shut.

The classic tale of "top of the crop, bottom of the crop" featured a rich man and a poor washerman. 

Where to next?

The Maldives!

Amaradevi (Feminist Folktales 2.)

Another Thursday, another post for Feminist Folktales! It's a series of traditional stories from around the world that display motifs that reflect feminist values. I am not changing any of the stories, merely researching and compiling them, and posting them here as food for thought. You can find the list of posts here.

Origin: Cambodia and Sri Lanka

The story

Cambodian version: Princess Amaradevi is courted by four ministers, but she chooses her own husband, a wise and noble man named Mahoseth. The four ministers frame the husband, accusing him of conspiring to assassinate the king. Mahoseth flees into exile. The moment he is gone, the four ministers begin courting Amaradevi, who sees through their plots immediately. She invites them to visit her for four consecutive dates, then has hes servants build a clever trap. When the ministers arrive, they are left alone in a room with a lot of jewelry spilled on the table. The moment they steal a piece, a trap door opens up and they are dropped into a pit filled with sticky substances. Amaradevi reveals the plot to the king, and her husband's name is cleared.

Sri Lankan version: Noble pandit Maha Bosat travels in incognito as a tailor, and encounters a girl on the road. They take a liking to each other, so he gives her a signal, which she interprets well and responds with a signal of her own. They start talking, and Maha Bosat asks her a series of questions, which she answers in riddles. He understands her meaning, and they are mutually impressed by the other's intellect, so they get married. Four other pandits steal jewels from the king's treasury, and frame Maha Bosat for the theft, forcing him into exile. All four of them try to court Amaradevi, who in turn has each one of them caught and bound. She presents evidence to the king to clear her husband's name, and they live happily ever after.

What makes it a feminist folktale?

Amaradevi
(Sharra Frank)

First off, Amaradevi lives in a happy and equal relationship of her own choosing. In the world of folktales, where princesses are often handed out as gifts or marry as a thanks for rescue, it is refreshing to meet a female protagonist who makes sure she chooses a man worthy of her. I especially like the beginning of the Sri Lankan version, which is basically a "Clever maiden and her suitors" type tale (ATU 876), ecept here the suitor understands her hidden meaning, and doesn't have to ask. They know they are meant for each other because they communicate well on multiple levels - words, signals, meanings.
Second, Amaradevi is hella smart. According to the Cambodian version she "had been educated not only in music, painting, and the fine art of poetry, but also in government, law, the sciences, and engineering." (Side note: the Kama Sutra lists mining and carpentry among the skills of a good wife. Mmmm, sexy.) She doesn't only see through the four ministers, but also designs the trap to catch them. This supposes a good deal of practical skill and knowledge, and also empathy in knowing what kind of men they are like, and how they can be trapped by their own weakness.
Third, it is important to mention Amaradevi's good relationship with the other female characters. In the Cambodian version she works together with her most loyal maid to trick the ministers, and they even spring the trap together. In the Sri Lankan version she finds out about the ministers' plot because she stops to chat with the servant girl they sent to her, asks her questions, gets to know her, and accidentally finds out. This story lacks all kinds of female jealousy and competition, which is very refreshing, because, frankly, female friendships are so rare in folklore they are almost nonexistent.

Real Cambodian Princess
Norodom Buppha Devi

Fourth, on the topic of jealousy and competition: this story has a very important message about the difference between healthy and toxic masculinity. The four ministers think that in order to get Amaradevi, all they need to do is get rid of her husband. Raise your hand if you are a woman, and you have used "I have a boyfriend" as a way of getting rid of a creep before, just to be told "but he is not here, is he?" (for higher level douchery: "and I have a girlfriend, so what?"). Here we have a smart, educated, confident princess, who chose her own husband, and the four idiots still think that if they get rid of him, she will just fall into their lap. This is textbook toxic masculinity: "there is clearly nothing wrong with me, so she would clearly be dating me if she wasn't with that guy" (or if there is no that guy, then it's clearly her fault for being a ****, and this is when things usually get violent). Unlike Mahoseth, the four ministers do not see Amaradevi as an independent, equal partner, but rather as an object that can be obtained once her "owner" is out of the way. They can't even imagine her making her own decision. This rhymes well with the fact that they can also not keep their hands off the unguarded jewelry. This is why Mahoseth ends up on the throne, and the ministers end up in the cesspit.

Things to consider

In the Sri Lankan version Maha Bosath puts Amaradevi through various tests - among them, he sends two men with a pile of money to try to seduce her, to "test her faithfulness." While it has its symbolic meaning in a traditional story (to make it explicit that Amaradevi is loyal in her relationship), testing one's faithfulness by tricks in real life is manipulative, and honestly I think the story works without it just fine.

Sources

The Cambodian version comes from the Gatiloke, a Buddhist teaching tale tradition written down in the 19th century. The Sri Lankan version is from the Ummagga Jataka, a 14th century Sinhalese collection of Jataka tales; Maha Bosat is one of the earlier avatars of the Buddha.

Kathleen Ragan: Fearless girls, wise women, and beloved sisters (W.W. Norton & Co., 2000.)
Muriel Paskin Carrison: Cambodian folk stories from the Gatiloke (Tuttle Publishing, 2011.)
Suzee Leong: Asian folk tales and legends (MPH Group Publishing, 2015.)
T. B. Yatawara: Ummagga Jataka (Luzac & Co. 1898.)
https://www.storiestogrowby.org/story/princess-amaradevi/

Notes

Amara means 'eternal' or 'immortal', and Devi means 'goddess.' Even in her name, Amaradevi is special.

Interesting story dislodges frog from queen's nose (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.

Here is the thing: There is no I in the Motif Index (probably because it looks too much like the number 1). So instead of going through a section for today, I searched the Index for words that begin with I, and picked the story that fit best. And was the strangest.

N641.2 Frog removed from queen's nose by telling such interesting story that she gives quick breath and dislodges him

This is a folktale from Sri Lanka, titled The Frog in the Queen's Nose (you might have noticed by now that Thompson's motif index is very heavy on South Asian stories). 

One day a Queen, walking in her gardens and smelling flowers, accidentally inhales a small frog, which gets stuck in her nose. People are summoned to get it out, but six of them fail in a row, and are executed for their failure. The King announces that whoever succeeds at getting the frog out of the Queen's nose shall receive a district of the kingdom, and also as much treasure as an elephant can carry.

In the kingdom there is also a couple. The wife is cheating on the husband; one day, while he goes to the rice fields, she makes hot rice milk for her lover. However, the husband's plow breaks, therefore he has to return home early. The wife hides the hot delicacy under the bed in a hurry. The husband comes home, sits on the bed, and burns his butt.

Some time later, the wife hears about the King's announcement - and decides that if her husband is executed, she'd be free to be with her lover, therefore she gets the King's messengers to take him to the palace.

The poor husband, nervous that he will be killed, starts talking about what happened to him earlier - he tells the story to the Queen about the plow, and the rice milk, and his poor burned behind. Hearing the story the Queen is so amused that she snorts - and out comes the tiny frog, flying, from her nose.

The poor man is richly rewarded; and as a bonus, the wife gets to live with her paramour.

(Read the story here.)