Folk Tales of Cambodia — Part 2 (The Student Tissab-Moc · Néang Montéa-Vatdey · Head to Head · The Four Legs of the Cat · The Four Blind Students)
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Part two. Five more judicial tales from Cambodia, collected by Léon Feer and published in Cambodge: contes et légendes (Paris, 1895), heard here in a fresh English telling from Feer's French. In The Student Tissab-Moc, four students — an astrologer, an archer, a maker of lustral water, and one who can raise the dead — rescue a king's daughter from the great bird that carried her off, and the king rules which of them shall be her professor, her father, her mother, and her husband. In Néang Montéa-Vatdey, a young girl dies of sorrow, and the three suitors who gather her bones, guard her tomb, and bring her back to life are assigned as her husband, her son, and her father. In Head to Head, three men who quarrel all night over which of them shall sleep between the other two are sent away to lie head to head, like three rays. In The Four Legs of the Cat, a kind servant's oiled rag fires a merchant's whole cargo, and the king divides the loss between the sore leg and the three sound ones. In The Four Blind Students, four students blinded by river water are cured by the juice of a falling mango — and then quarrel over the mango, and over a gold mine, before the king. Every judgment is said to conform to "walking in the straight path." The episode opens and closes with its theme, Feline Grace — Concert Hall Miniatures, heard also briefly between the stories; there is no music under the narration.
Chapters
0:57 The Student Tissab-Moc
6:08 Néang Montéa-Vatdey
13:42 Head to Head
15:15 The Four Legs of the Cat
18:45 The Four Blind Students
One passage is noted: in The Student Tissab-Moc the archer's arrow wounds the great bird, which flees alive, and the princess, dead when she is drawn from the sea, is restored to life within the tale. Other tales of the book are not read on this shelf, excluded by name after a full reading: Le Déchou Kraham-Ka et le Déchou Yat · Le Perroquet et la Merle · Néang Kantoc · Histoire de Con Tam et de Con Cam · Néang Chhouk · Néang Soc-Kraaup · Mono-Véan · Le Voleur et les Quatre Femmes · Les Quatre Hommes Vertueux. No claim of completeness for the book is made.
From Cambodge: contes et légendes, by Léon Feer (Paris, 1895), public domain — Internet Archive cambodgecontese00feergoog; the five tales complete and in book order, in a fresh English telling from Feer's French. Narrated by Madame de Pamplemousse. Theme: Feline Grace — Concert Hall Miniatures.
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