Filipino folktale-How the Tinguian Learned to Plant

   This is an interesting Folk tales from Philippines. The Philippines is in the south-east country in Asia, situated in the western Pacific Ocean. The culture and the heritage of Philippines are so much rich and wealthy. This folk tale is collected from the book “Philippine Folk Tales”. The author of this folk tales story book was “Mabel Cook Cole” and it was published from “A.C. McClurg & Co., Chicago” in 1916. 

How the Tinguian Learned to Plant

                    - A Filipino Folktale

   In the very old times the Tinguian did not know how to plant and harvest as they now do. For food they had only the things that grew in the forests and fish from the streams. They did not know how to cure people who became ill or were injured by the evil spirits neither and many people died who might otherwise have lived.

   Then Kadaklan, the Great Spirit who lives in the sky, saw that the people often were hungry and sick. Then Kadaklan sent one of his servants, Kaboniyan, to the earth to teach them many things. And it happened this way.

Folk Tale - The Most Beautiful Princess

   This is a Folk tale from Brazil. Brazil is the largest country in South America. Brazil is very well-known for its culture and the game ‘Football’. The world biggest river Amazon and the Amazon Rain-forest is here. This Brazilian folk tale is collected from the folk tale story book named, “Tales of Giants from Brazil”. This book was written by- Elsie Spicer Eells, published- 1918.

The Most Beautiful Princes

The Most Beautiful Princess - Part 1

      - A Folk Tale from Brazil

    
   Long ago there was a king who was very ill. He wanted a hare killed to make him some soup. His only son, the prince, set out to find one a hare. As the prince walked along the path to the forest a pretty little hare ran out of the hedge and crossed his path. He at once started in following. The hare was a very swift runner. The prince followed the hare into the deep forest. Suddenly the hare ran into a hole in the ground. The prince kept in sight of her and soon found to his fear that he was in a big cave. At the very rear of the cave there was the most enormous giant he had ever seen in his life.

   The prince was terribly frightened. “Oh, ho!” said the giant in such a deep savage voice that the cave echoed and re-echoed with his words. “You thought you will catch my little hare, did you? Well, I have caught you instead!”

   The giant seized the prince in one of his huge hands and tossed him lightly into a box at one end of the cave. He put the cover on the box and locked it down with a big key. The prince could get only a tiny bit of air through a little hole in the top, and he thought that he never could live. Hours passed, sometimes the prince slept, but more often he lay there thinking about his sick father and what he could ever do to get out of the box and back once more to his father’s side.

Russian Folk Tale - The Hunter and his Wife (Part-2)

   This is an interesting Russian Folk tale. The first part already published before, here is the last part of this story.

The Hunter

   The Hunter and his Wife - Part 2

   Early in the morning the hunter was awakened by the noise of the dog pushing through the twigs on its way back. He heard how the dogs addressed each other.

   "Well and how are you, brother?" said the first dog.

   "Finely," said the second dog; "and what about you?"

   "Fine too. Did the night pass well?” , asked the first dog.

   The second dog said, "Well enough, thanks to the God. But with you, brother? How was it at home?"

   "Oh brother, it was so badly. I ran home, and the mistress, when she sees me, soughed out, 'What the devil are you doing here without your master? Well, there is your supper;' and she threw me a crust of bread, burnt like a black coal. I snuffed it and snuffed it, but I could not eat that. No dog alive could have made a meal of it, and with that she started to beat me with a stick. But at night, later on—just as I thought—thieves came into the yard, and were going to clear out the barn and the storeroom. But I let loose such a howl, and leapt upon them so cruel and angry, that they had little thought to leave off from other people's goods, and had all they could do to get away whole themselves. This way, I spent the night."

   The hunter heard all that the dogs said, and kept it in his mind. "Wait a bit, my good lady," he said to himself, "and see what I have to say to you when I get home."

Russian Folk Tale - The Hunter and his Wife (Part-1)

   This is an interesting Russian Folk Tale. The biggest country in the world. The variety of Russian people and their cultures are very familiar all over the world.

The Hunter

The Hunter and his wife - part 1

   Once upon a time there was a hunter who went out into the forest to hunt the birds and small animals. He had a wife and two dogs. His wife was for ever asking questions, so that he was glad to get away from her into the forest. And she did not like dogs, and said they were always bringing dirt into the house with their muddy feet. So that the dogs were glad and got chance to get away into the forest with the hunter.

   One day the hunter and the two dogs walked all day through the deep forest, and never got a sight of a bird, they never even saw a rabbit. All day long they walked on and saw nothing. The hunter had not fired a single cartridge. He did not want to go home and have to answer his wife's questions about why he had come home with an empty bag. So he went deeper and deeper into the deep forest. At the evening, he started to walk towards his home and suddenly he got a sharp smell of burning wood floated through the trees. The hunter was looking to that, saw the sparkling of a fire. He made his way towards it, and found a clearing in the forest; a wood pile in the middle of it and it was burning so fiercely that he could just come near it.

   And there was a miracle, he found in the middle of the burning timbers there was sitting a great snake, curled round and round upon itself and waving its head above the flames. 

   As soon as it saw the hunter it called out, in a loud hissing voice, to come near. He went as near as he could, shading his face from the heat.

   "My good man," said the snake, "pull me out of the fire, and you shall understand the talk of the beasts and the songs of the birds."

   "I will be happy to help you, but how?" said the hunter, “The flames are so hot and I cannot reach you."

   "Put the barrel of your gun into the fire, and I will crawl out along it.", said the snake.

Folk tale - Lazy Jack

   This is an old English folk tale story. This story was collected by James Halliwell Orchard Phillips. 

   Once upon a time there was a boy whose name was Jack, and he lived with his mother in a small and dull cottage. They were very poor, and the old woman earned a few pennies by doing some odd jobs, but that was not enough to maintain the family properly. Jack was so lazy that he would do nothing but relax in the sun in the hot weather and sit by the corner of the fire in the winter time. His mother could not make him do anything for the family. At last his mother warned him that if he did not begin to work for his porridge, she would turn him out of the house to get his living as best he could.

   This threat finally stirred Jack. He went out and found a job for the day working for on a farm. The farmer paid him one penny, but he was not used to having money, and as he was coming him he lost it as he passed over a stream. 

   “You stupid boy, you should have put it in your pocket.” said his mother.

   “Next time I will.” replied Jack.

   The next day Jack went out again, and found a job with a cow-keeper, who gave him a jar of milk for his day’s work. Jack took the jar and put it into the large pocket of his jacket. The whole milk was spilling it all, long before he came home.

   “Oh my Dear, you should have carried it on your head!” said his mother. 

   “Next time I will.” replied Jack.

   The following day Jack found a job with a farmer. The farmer agreed to give him a cream cheese for his work. In the evening, Jack took the cheese and went home with it on his head. By the time he got home the cheese was completely spoiled, part of it being lost, and part matted with his hair. 

   “You are a good-for-nothing boy,” said his mother, “you should have carried it very carefully in your hands.” 

   “Next time, I will.” replied Jack.

A Folk Tale - The Seal-Catcher

       The Seal-Catcher

    - A Folk tale from Scotland

    
   There was once a man who lived at the very north of Scotland. He made his living by catching fish of all sizes and types, but he had a particular liking for killing those wonderful animals, half-dog, half-fish, called Seals. No doubt he liked killing the seals so much because he got a fancy price for their skins. 

   Now one day the fisherman stabbed a seal with his hunting knife, but he failed to kill it completely. The seal let out a loud cry of pain and slipped off the rocks and into the sea, taking the knife with it.

   After that the fisherman returned home. Later that night, a stranger came to visit him in his cottage. The man said that he had been sent by his master who wanted to buy a large number of seal skins. The fisherman was very glad to hear this news. The two men both mounted the stranger’s horse, and rode off at great speed, their faces cutting through the sharp, salty air. Finally they reached a great cliff that overhung the sea, and the stranger told the fisherman that they had arrived.

   “But where is the person who want to buy seal skins?” asked the astonished seal-catcher.

   “Soon you shall see!” replied the stranger, and with that the stranger seized the fisherman with irresistible force, and they both plunged over the cliff and headlong down into the sea. After sinking down and down, nobody knows how far, they at last reached a pearly gate which opened onto a palace. The rooms of the palace were filled not with people, but with seals those could speak and feel like human. And the seal-catcher was surprised to find that he had been changed himself into the form of a seal.