E is for Elephants (Folktales of Endangered Species)

Welcome to the 2020 A to Z blogging challenge! This year my theme is Folktales of Endangered Species. I am researching cool traditional stories about rare, fascinating animals - to raise awareness of what we might lose if we don't get our collective shit together. Enjoy!

Species: Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus)

Status: Critically endangered

The elephant cemetery

Sumatran legend

There are various legends in Sumatra about the secret life of elephants. In one beautiful story they gather on moonlit nights in the jungle, stand on their hind legs, raise their trunks, and greet the moon with dancing in a circle.

According to one legend, there is a tree on a lonely mountain that serves as the "death tree" of the elephants. When they grow old and sick, they go up on the mountain, lie down under the tree, and die there. The tree is surrounded by white elephant bones. Story says a man once happened on the cemetery, and realized he could become rich by selling all the ivory. He lifted two tusks on his shoulders and started on the way back... but he walked and walked in circles, and could not find the path anywhere. He eventually realized that he could not leave the mountain until he put the tusks back where they belonged. The forest protected the cemetery, and the privacy of the elephants. 

Sources: Read the story here.

How can I help?

Read about conservation efforts here or here.

What else do you think elephants (or other animals) do in secret when no human is watching?

I is for Ivory, Castles and Dreams

(For those of you who are not avid Blackmore's Night fans, the title is a reference to this song.)

Ivory is a material that comes from the tusks and teeth of various animals (most often elephants and hippos). It also stands for the pale white-yellow color of these teeth. While a lot of people associate ivory with pure white, is is more of the pastel shade.

One of my favorite stories involving ivory is the Greek myth that says that dreams arrive to people through two doors: One made of horn, and one made of ivory. Horn stands for true dreams, while ivory stands for illusion and deception. In the Aeneid it is stated that the gates of horn are the passage for true shades that have messages for the living, while the gates of ivory are where the haunting spirits go through.

Ivory is also featured on a later Greek folktale call The Son of the Hunter. I swear I am not doing this on purpose, but this one is also included in my book, filed under Geokinesis, because it involves a character that can make the earth shake and tremble. The tale itself is about a young hunter who is given impossible tasks to accomplish by his king, who is tricked into messing with him by his evil adviser. One of the quests he has to accomplish is building a palace solely made of ivory. The young hunter learns from his mother that his father knew a place where elephants go to drink. He fills the pond with alcohol, gets the elephants drunk, and harvests all the ivory he needs. Later on, the king tasks him with retrieving a princess who just happens to be the little sister of forty dragons. In the end, and with the help of a team of people with various superpowers, he finds the princess, falls in love, wins her hand, and the villain gets punished for his intrigue.

Here is the thing about telling this story: The ivory trade has been and is still known for endangering several species, and is often judged for poaching, animal abuse, and various other sins. For that reason, I usually change this folktale when I tell it. I either change it to the mother telling the young hero about an "elephant cemetery," skip the scene, substitute for another material, or add a side note about the history of the ivory trade in the end (in educational settings). I wrote about this in detail in my notes on the story. Keep the issue in mind, and tell the way you are most comfortable with.

Still on the topic of ivory: If you have not read Michael Ende's The Neverending Story yet (watching the movie does not count!), go read it. Trust me on this.

E is for the Elephant Princess

Today's princess is brought to you from Malaysia, by the author if this neat little collection.

The story starts out with ("the prophet") Adam and Eve having a fight. Start at the Beginning, right? With a capital B.
Well, this fight ends in a breakup because Eve decides to move "across the sea" and become "the queen of the other side." In addition to that, she also has a daughter, a princess. Princess soon grows curious about what is across the sea, and defying her mother's orders to leave people's fields alone she crosses the water and stomps around until she is turned into an elephant for her carelessness. Oops.

The prince that lives nearby sees her in her new form, and, guess what, he has never seen an elephant before. When he sees the monster "with tails on both ends" he hits in on the forehead with an iron pike and breaks the tip of the weapon off into the elephant's skin. Elephant princess runs home, and the prince follows, suspecting that it was not just an ordinary monster. The rest is pretty standard: he finds the princess, removes the iron blade from her forehead, brings her back to life and health, and marries her.

BUT.

The moment the princess and her thirty-nine attendants set foot on the Prince's fields after the wedding, on their way to their new home... they turn into elephants.

End of story.

So, the prince now has forty great elephants instead of a wife. Some would call that a good deal. I suspect this story was supposed to explain the origin of elephants. It certainly did it in a very original way.

Moral of the story: Treat elephants well, one in every forty is a princess.

(The picture has nothing to do with the story, it is a TV show aptly named "Elephant Princess." I was amused.)