Filipino Popular Tales

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Soon they came upon a dark abyss. Curious to know what it might
contain, the three brothers looked down into it, but they could not
see the bottom. Not contented, however, with only seeing into the
well, they decided to go to the very bottom: so they gathered vines
and connected them into a rope.

Pedro was the first to make the attempt, but he could not stand the
darkness. Then Felipe tried; but he too became frightened, and could
not stay long in the dark. At last Juan's turn came. He went down to
the very bottom of the abyss, where he found a vast plain covered with
trees and bushes and shrubs. On one side he saw at a short distance a
green house. He approached the house, and saw a most beautiful lady
sitting at the door. When she saw him, she said to him in friendly
tones, "Hail, Juan! I wonder at your coming, for no earthly creature
has ever before been here. However, you are welcome to my house." With
words of compliment Juan accepted her invitation, and entered the
house. He was kindly received by that lady, Maria. They fell in love
with each other, and she agreed to go with Juan to his home.

They had talked together but a short while, when Maria suddenly told
Juan to hide, for her guardian, the giant, was coming. Soon the monster
appeared, and said to Maria in a terrible voice, "You are concealing
some one. I smell human flesh." She denied that she was, but the
giant searched all corners of the house. At last Juan was found,
and he boldly fought with the monster. He received many wounds, but
they were easily healed by Maria's magic medicine. After a terrific
struggle, the giant was killed. Maria applauded Juan's valor. She
gave him food, and related stories to him while he was eating. She
also told him of her neighbor Isabella, none the less beautiful than
she. Juan, in turn, told her of many things in his own home that were
not found in that subterranean plain.

When he had finished eating and had recovered his strength, Juan said
that they had better take Isabella along with them too. Maria agreed
to this. Accordingly Juan set out to get Isabella. When he came to
her house, she was looking out the window. As soon as she saw him,
she exclaimed in a friendly manner, "O Juan! what have you come here
for? Since my birth I have never seen an earthly creature like you!"

"Madam," returned Juan in a low voice, "my appearance before you is
due to some Invisible Being I cannot describe to you." The moment
Isabella heard these words, she blushed. "Juan," she said, "come up!"

Juan entered, and related to her his unfortunate lot, and how he had
found the abyss. Finally, struck with Isabella's fascinating beauty,
Juan expressed his love for her. They had not been talking long
together, when footsteps were heard approaching nearer and nearer. It
was her guardian, the seven-headed monster. "Isabella," it growled,
with an angry look about, "some human creature must be somewhere in
the house."

"There is nobody in the house but me," she exclaimed. The monster,
however, insisted. Seeking all about the house, it at last discovered
Juan, who at once attacked with his sword. In this encounter he was
also successful, cutting off all the seven heads of the monster.

With great joy Juan and Isabella returned to Maria's house. Then the
three went to the foot of the well. There Juan found the vine still
suspended. He tied one end of it around Isabella's waist, and then she
was pulled up by the two brothers waiting above. When they saw her,
Pedro and Felipe each claimed her, saying almost at the same time,
"What a beauty! She is mine." Isabella assured them that there were
other ladies below prettier than she. When he heard these words,
Felipe dropped one end of the vine again. When Maria reached the top
of the well, Felipe felt glad, and claimed her for himself. As the two
brothers each had a maiden now, they would not drop the vine a third
time; but finally Maria persuaded them to do so. On seeing only their
brother's figure, however, the two unfeeling brothers let go of the
vine, and Juan plunged back into the darkness. "O my friends!" said
Maria, weeping, "this is not the way to treat a brother. Had it not
been for him, we should not be here now." Then she took her magic comb,
saying to it, "Comb, if you find Juan dead, revive him; if his legs
and arms are broken, restore them." Then she dropped it down the well.

By means of this magic comb, Juan was brought back to life. The
moment he was able to move his limbs, he groped his way in the dark,
and finally he found himself in the same subterranean plain again. As
he knew of no way to get back to earth, he made up his mind to accept
his fate.

As he was lazily strolling about, he came to a leafy tree with
spreading branches. He climbed up to take a siesta among its fresh
branches. Just as he closed his eyes, he heard a voice calling,
"Juan, Juan! Wake up! Go to the Land of the Pilgrims, for there
your lot awaits you." He opened his eyes and looked about him, but
he saw nothing. "It is only a bird," he said, "that is disturbing
my sleep." So he shut his eyes again. After some moments the same
voice was heard again from the top of the tree. He looked up, but he
could not see any one. However, the voice continued calling to him
so loudly, that he could not sleep. So he descended from the tree to
find that land.

In his wanderings he met an old man wearing very ragged, worn-out
clothes. Juan asked him about the Land of the Pilgrims. The old man
said to him, "Here, take this piece of cloth, which, as you see, I have
torn off my garment, and show it to a hermit you will find living at
a little distance from here. Then tell him your wish." Juan took the
cloth and went to the hermit. When the hermit saw Juan entering his
courtyard without permission, he was very angry. "Hermit," said Juan,
"I have come here on a very important mission. While I was sleeping
among the branches of a tree, a bird sang to me repeatedly that I must
go to the Land of the Pilgrims, where my lot awaits me. I resolved
to look for this land. On my way I met an old man, who gave me this
piece of cloth and told me to show it to you and ask you about this
place I have mentioned." When the hermit saw the cloth, his anger
was turned into sorrow and kindness. "Juan," he said, "I have been
here a long time, but I have never seen that old man."

Now, this hermit had in his care all species of animals. He summoned
them all into his courtyard, and asked each about the Land of the
Pilgrims; but none could give any information. When he had asked them
all in vain, the hermit told Juan to go to another hermit living some
distance away.

Accordingly Juan left to find this hermit. At first, like the other,
this hermit was angry on seeing Juan; but when he saw the piece of
cloth, his anger was turned into pity and sorrow. Juan told him what
he was looking for, and the hermit sounded a loud trumpet. In a moment
there was an instantaneous rushing of birds of every description. He
asked every one about the Land of the Pilgrims, but not one knew of
the place. But just as Juan was about to leave, suddenly there came an
eagle swooping down into the courtyard. When asked if it knew of the
Land of the Pilgrims, it nodded its head. The hermit then ordered it to
bear Juan to the Land of the Pilgrims. It willingly obeyed, and flew
across seas and over mountains with Juan on its back. After Juan had
been carried to the wished-for land, the eagle returned to its master.

Here Juan lived with a poor couple, who cared for him as if he were
their own child, and he served them in turn. He asked them about
the land they were living in. They told him that it was governed by
a tyrannical king who had a beautiful daughter. They said that many
princes who courted her had been put to death because they had failed
to fulfil the tasks required of them. When Juan heard of this beautiful
princess, he said to himself, "This is the lot that awaits me. She
is to be my wife." So, in spite of the dangers he ran the risk of,
he resolved to woo her.

One day, when her tutors were away, he made a kite, to which he
fastened a letter addressed to the princess, and flew it. While she was
strolling about in her garden, the kite suddenly swooped down before
her. She was surprised, and wondered. "What impudent knave," she said,
"ventures to let fall his kite in my garden?" She stepped towards the
kite, looked at it, and saw the letter written in bold hand. She read
it. After a few moments' hesitation, she replaced it with a letter
of her own in which she told him to come under the window of her tower.

When he came there, the princess spoke to him in this manner: "Juan,
if you really love me, you must undergo hardships. Show yourself
to my father to-morrow, and agree to do all that he commands you to
do. Then come back to me." Juan willingly promised to undertake any
difficulties for her sake.

The next morning Juan waited at the stairway of the king's palace. The
king said to him, "Who are you, and what do you come here for?"

"O king! I am Juan, and I have come here to marry your daughter."

"Very well, Juan, you can have your wish if you perform the task I
set you. Take these grains of wheat and plant them in that hill,
and to-morrow morning bring me, out of these same grains, newly
baked bread for my breakfast. Then you shall be married immediately
to my daughter. But if you fail to accomplish this task, you shall
be beheaded."

Juan bowed his head low, and left. Sorrowful he appeared before
the princess.

"What's the matter, Juan?" she said.

"O my dear princess! your father has imposed on me a task impossible
to perform. He gave me these grains of wheat to be planted in that
hill, and to-morrow he expects a newly baked loaf of bread from them."

"Don't worry, Juan. Go home now, and to-morrow show yourself to my
father. The bread will be ready when he awakes."

The next morning Juan repaired to the palace, and was glad to find the
bread already on the table. When the king woke up, he was astonished
to see that Juan had performed the task.

"Now, Juan," said the king, "one more task for you. Under my window
I have two big jars,--one full of mongo, [61] the other of very fine
sand. I will mix them, and you have to assort them so that each kind
is in its proper jar again." Juan promised to fulfil this task. He
passed by the window of the princess, and told her what the king had
said. "Go home and come back here to-morrow," she said to him. "The
king will find the mongo and sand in their proper jars."

The next morning Juan went back to the palace. The king, just arisen
from bed, looked out of the window, and was astounded to see the mongo
and sand perfectly assorted. "Well, Juan," said the king, "you have
successfully performed the tasks I required of you. But I have one
thing more to ask of you. Yesterday afternoon, while my wife and I
were walking along the seashore, my gold ring fell into the water. I
want you to find it, and bring it to me to-morrow morning."

"Your desire shall be fulfilled, O king!" replied Juan.

He told the princess of the king's wish. "Come here tomorrow just
before dawn," she said, "and bring a big basin and a bolo. We will
go together to find the ring."

Just before dawn the next day he went to her tower, where she was
waiting for him in the disguise of a village maid. They went to the
seashore where the ring was supposed to have been lost. There the
princess Maria--that was her name--said to him, "Now take your basin
and bolo and cut me to pieces. Pour out the chopped mass into the
water in which my father's ring was dropped, but take care not to
let a single piece of the flesh fall to the ground!"

On hearing these words, Juan stood dumfounded, and began to weep. Then
in an imploring tone he said, "O my beloved! I would rather have you
chop my body than chop yours."

"If you love me," she said, "do as I tell you."

Then Juan reluctantly seized the bolo, and with closed eyes cut her
body to pieces and poured the mass into the water where the ring was
supposed to be. In five minutes there rose from the water the princess
with the ring on her finger. But Juan fell asleep; and before he awoke,
the ring fell into the water again.

"Oh, how little you love me!" she exclaimed. "The ring fell because
you did not catch it quickly from my finger. Cut up my body as before,
and pour the mass of flesh into the water again." Accordingly Juan
cut her to pieces a second time, and again poured the mass into the
water. Then in a short time Maria rose from the water with the ring
on her finger; but Juan fell asleep again, and again the ring fell
back into the water.

Now Maria was angry: so she cut a gash on his finger, and told him
to cut her body to pieces and pour the mass out as before. At last
the ring was found again. This time Juan was awake, and he quickly
caught the ring as she rose from the water.

That morning Juan went before the king and presented the ring to
him. When the monarch saw it, he was greatly astonished, and said to
himself, "How does he accomplish all the tasks I have given him? Surely
he must be a man of supernatural powers." Raising his head, he said
to Juan, "Juan, you are indeed the man who deserves the hand of my
daughter; but I want you to do me one more service. This will be the
last. Fetch me my horse, for I want to go out hunting to-day." Now,
this horse could run just as fast as the wind. It was a very wild
horse, too, and no one could catch it except the king himself and
the princess.

Juan promised, however, and repaired to Maria's tower. When she
learned her father's wish, she went with Juan and helped him catch
the horse. After they had caught it, she caught hers too. Then they
returned to the palace. Juan and Maria now agreed to run away. So
after Juan had tied the king's horse near the stairway, they mounted
Maria's horse and rode off rapidly.

When the king could not find his daughter, he got on his horse
and started in pursuit of Juan and Maria, who were now some miles
ahead. But the king's horse ran so fast, that in a few minutes he had
almost overtaken the fugitives. Maria, seeing her father behind them,
dropped her comb, and in the wink of an eye a thick grove of bamboos
blocked the king's way. By his order, a road was made through the
bamboo in a very short time. Then he continued his chase; but just
as he was about to overtake them a second time, Maria flung down
her ring, and there rose up seven high hills behind them. The king
was thus delayed again; but his horse shot over these hills as fast
as the wind, so that in a few minutes he was once more in sight of
the fugitives. This time Maria turned around and spat. Immediately
a wide sea appeared behind them. The king gave up his pursuit, and
only uttered these words: "O ungrateful daughter!" Then he turned
back to his palace.

The young lovers continued their journey until they came to a small
village. Here they decided to be married, so they at once went to
the village priest. He married them that very day. Juan and Maria
now determined to live in that place the rest of their lives, so they
bought a house and a piece of land. As time went by, Juan thought of
his parents.

One day he asked permission from his wife to visit his father and
mother. "You may go," she said; "but remember not to let a single drop
of your father's or mother's tears fall on your cheeks, for you will
forget me if you do." Promising to remember her words, Juan set out.

When his parents saw him, they were so glad that they embraced him and
almost bathed him with tears of joy. Juan forgot Maria. It happened
that on the day Juan reached home, Felipe, his brother, was married
to Maria, the subterranean lady, and a feast was being held in the
family circle. The moment Maria recognized Juan, whom she loved
most, she annulled her marriage with Felipe, and wanted to marry
Juan. Accordingly the village was called to settle the question,
and Maria and Juan were married that same day. The merrymaking and
dancing continued.

In the mean time there came, to the surprise of every one, a beautiful
princess riding in a golden carriage drawn by fine horses. She was
invited to the dance. While the people were enjoying themselves
dancing and singing, they were suddenly drawn together around this
princess to see what she was doing. She was sitting in the middle
of the hall. Before her she had a dog chained. Then she began to ask
the dog these questions:--

"Did you not serve a certain king for his daughter?"

"No!" answered the dog.

"Did he not give you grains of wheat to be planted in a hill, and
the morning following you were to give him newly baked bread made
from the wheat?"

"No!"

"Did he not mix together two jars of mongo and sand, then order
you to assort them so that the mongo was in one jar and the sand in
the other?"

"No!"

"Do you not remember when you and a princess went together to the
seashore to find the ring of her father, and when you cut her body
to pieces and poured the chopped mass into the water?"

When Juan, who was watching, heard this last question, he rushed from
the ring of people that surrounded her and knelt before her, saying, "O
my most precious wife! I implore your forgiveness!" Then the new-comer,
who was none other than Maria, Juan's true wife, embraced him, and
their former love was restored. So the feast went on. To the great
joy of Felipe, Maria, the subterranean lady, was given back to him;
and the two couples lived happily the rest of their lives.

Notes.

This story, which is a mixture of well-known motifs and incidents,
really falls into two parts, though an attempt is made at the end to
bind them together. The first part, ending with the treachery of the
brothers after the hero has made his underground journey and rescued
the two beautiful maidens from their giant captors, has resemblances
to parts of the "Bear's Son" cycle. The second half of the story is a
well-developed member of the "Forgotten Betrothed" cycle, preserving,
in fact, all the characteristic incidents, and also prefacing to this
whole section details that form a transition between it and part 1. I
am unable to point out any European parallels to the story as a whole,
but analogues of both parts are very numerous. As the latter half
constitutes the major portion of our story, we shall consider it first.

The fundamental and characteristic incidents of the "Forgotten
Betrothed" cycle (sometimes called the "True Bride" cycle) are as
follows:--

A The performance by the hero of difficult tasks through the help of
the loved one, who is usually the daughter of a magician.

B The magic flight of the couple, either with transformations of
themselves or with the casting behind them of obstacles to retard
the pursuer.

C The forgetting of the bride by the hero because he breaks a taboo
(the cause of the forgetting is usually a parental kiss, which the
hero should have avoided).

D The re-awakened memory of the hero during his marriage ceremony or
wedding feast with a new bride, either through the conversation of
the true bride with an animal or through the true bride's kiss. In
some forms of the story, the hero's memory is restored on the third
of three nights sold to the heroine by the venial second bride. [62]

E The marriage of the hero and heroine.

Andrew Lang (Custom and Myth, 2d ed., 87-102) traces incidents A and
B as far back as the myth of Jason, the earliest literary reference
to which is in the Iliad (vii, 467; XXIII, 747). But this story does
not contain the last three incidents: clearly they have come from
some other source, and have been joined to the first two,--a natural
process in the development of a folk-tale. The episode of the magic
flight is very widely distributed: Lang mentions Zulu, Gaelic, Norse,
Malagasy, Russian, Italian, and Japanese versions. Of the magic flight
combined with the performance of difficult tasks set by the girl's
father, the stories are no less widely scattered: Greece, Madagascar,
Scotland, Russia, Italy, North America (Algonquins), Finland, Samoa
(p. 94). The only reasonable explanation of these resemblances,
according to Lang, is the theory of transmission; and if Mr. Lang,
the champion of the "anthropological theory," must needs explain in
this rather business-like way a comparatively simple tale, what but
the transmission theory can explain far more complicated stories of
five or six distinct incidents in the same sequence?

The "Forgotten Betrothed" cycle was clearly invented but once; when or
where, we shall not attempt to say. But that its excellent combination
of rapid, marvellous, and pathetic situations has made it a tale of
almost universal appeal, is attested to by the scores of variants that
have been collected within the last half-century and more. In his notes
to Campbell's Gaelic story, "The Battle of the Birds," No. 2, Koehler
cites Norwegian, Swedish, Italian, German, and Hungarian versions
(Orient und Occident, 2 : 107). Ralston (pp. 132-133), Cosquin (2 :
No. 32 and notes), Crane (No. XV and notes, pp. 343-344), Bolte (in
his additions to Koehler, 1 : 170-174), and Bolte-Polivka (to Nos. 51,
56, 113) have added very full bibliographies. It is unnecessary here
to list all the variants of this story that have been collected, but
we will examine some of the analogues to our tale from the point of
view of the separate incidents.

After the hero of our present story has been deserted by his
treacherous brothers, and has found himself once more in the
under-world, he is told by a mysterious voice to go to the Land of the
Pilgrims, where he will find his fate. He meets an old man, who directs
him to a hermit. The hermit, in turn, directs the youth to another
hermit, who learns from an eagle where the Land of the Pilgrims is,
and directs the bird to carry the youth thither. While the story does
not state that the Land of the Pilgrims is on the "upper-world," we
must suppose that it is, and that the eagle is the means whereby the
hero escapes from the underground kingdom. In a large number of members
of the "Bear's Son" cycle, to which, as has been said, the first part
of our story belongs, this is the usual means of escape. The incident
is also found in a large number of tales not connected otherwise
with this group (see Cosquin, 2 : 141-144). It is sometimes combined
with the quest for the water of life, with which in turn is connected
the situation of the hero's being referred from one guide to another
(giants, sages, hermits, etc.), as in our story (cf. Grimm, No. 97,
and notes; also Bolte-Polivka to No. 97, especially 2 : 400; Thorpe,
158; Tawney, 1 : 206; Persian Tales, 2 : 171). This whole section
appears to have been introduced as a transition between parts 1 and 2.

The second part of our story opens with the "bride-wager" incident
(see Von Hahn, 1 : 54, "Oenomaosformel"), though I can point to no
parallel of Juan's method of making love to the princess; that is,
by means of a letter conveyed by a kite.

The tasks which the hero is obliged to perform vary greatly in the
different members of the "Forgotten Betrothed" cycle. Juan has to
plant wheat and bake bread from the ripened grain in twenty-four hours,
separate a jar of mongo from a jar of sand, and fetch a ring from the
sea. The first task imposed by the king has analogies in a number of
European tales. In Groome's No. 34 the Devil says to the hero, "Here
is one more task for you: drain the marsh, and plough it, and sow it,
and to-morrow bring me roasted maize" (p. 106). In Groome's No. 7 the
king says to the old man, "See this great forest! Fell it all, and make
it a level field; and plough it for me, and break up all the earth;
and sow it with millet by to-morrow morning. And mark well what I tell
you: you must bring me a cake [made from the ripened millet-seed,
clearly; see p. 23] made with sweet milk." Cosquin (2 : 24) cites a
Catalan and a Basque story in which the hero has not only to fell a
great forest, but to sow grain and harvest it. In kind this is the same
sort of impossible task imposed on Truth in a Visayan story (JAFL 19 :
100-102), where the hero has to beget, and the princess his wife to
bring forth, in one night, three children. Helpful eagles solve this
difficulty for Truth by conveying to him three newly-born babes. The
second task is a well-known one, and is found in many members of the
"Grateful Animals" cycle. Usually it is ants, which the hero has
earlier spared, that perform the service of separating two kinds of
seed, etc. (see Tawney, 1 : 361 and note). The mixture of sand and
mongo, in our story, is not a very happy conception. Originally it must
have been either gravel and mongo, or else mongo and some other kind of
lentil nearly resembling it in size. The third task, with the method of
accomplishing it, is perhaps the most interesting of all. In a Samoan
story of the "Forgotten Betrothed" cycle (Lang, op. cit., p. 98), the
heroine bids the hero cut her body into pieces and cast them into the
sea. There she becomes a fish and recovers the ring. In a Catalan tale
(Rondallayre, 1 : 41) the hero is also required to fetch a ring from
the bottom of the sea. His loved one tells him to cut her to pieces,
taking care not to let any part drop to the ground, and to throw all
into the water. In spite of all his care, he lets fall to earth one
drop of blood. The heroine recovers the ring, but lacks the first
joint of her little finger when she resumes her original shape.