Ainu Tales — Part 2: How It Was Settled Who Should Rule the World · The Man Who Lost His Wife · Sunrise · The Kind Giver and the Grudging Giver · The Man Who Was Changed into a Fox · Don't Throw Useful Things Away · The Angry Crow · Drinking the Sea Dry
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Eight Ainu folk tales as taken down in Hokkaidō in 1886 and rendered in English by Basil Hall Chamberlain in Aino Folk-Tales (London, 1888) — the second episode of this shelf, drawn from the tales told to Chamberlain by Penri of Piratori, Ishanashte, Kannariki and Kuteashguru, and freshly rendered for this series. These are the tales that passed the shelf's screen and were held clean when Part 1 was made.
The fox-god alone looks west, and wins the sunrise wager that settles who rules the world. The oak god lends a grieving husband a horse of pure gold, and a song ride through the streets of heaven wins back his stolen wife. Crows and foxes thrust into the devil's mouth at dawn earn their share of all our food. A washed fish brings gold and silver puppies to a kind giver — and a mud-smeared fish brings the grudging giver puppies that give out only dung. A lying extortionist wakes in a fox's body and is spared by the goddess of the oak. A discarded grandfather's axe, rusting under the floor, sickens a child until it is polished and honoured again. A crow guest repays a feast with an insult and flies out of the window. And the chief of the upper river accepts the challenge to drink the sea dry — once every river mouth is closed.
Stories in this episode:
0:35 Introduction
1:59 How It Was Settled Who Should Rule the World
3:54 The Man Who Lost His Wife
7:46 Sunrise
8:51 The Kind Giver and the Grudging Giver
14:08 The Man Who Was Changed into a Fox
16:43 Don't Throw Useful Things Away
20:08 The Angry Crow
21:26 Drinking the Sea Dry
Source: Aino Folk-Tales (London, 1888) by Basil Hall Chamberlain — public domain; fresh in-house English rendering. Narrated by Madame de Pamplemousse.
Music: "Aqua Elegie" (instrumental) — opening and closing theme; with a short excerpt between stories.
Ainu folk tales, Ainu Tales, Basil Hall Chamberlain, Aino Folk-Tales, Hokkaido folklore, fairy tales, animal tales, trickster tales, KacheliTV
