Folk Tales of Chile — Part 1 (The Little Enchanted Fish · La Tenquita · The King Has a Little Horn)
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Part one — the premiere of a new shelf. Three Chilean folk tales collected from oral tradition by Ramón A. Laval and published in his Cuentos populares en Chile (Santiago, 1923); heard here in a fresh in-house English translation made from the Spanish. In The Little Enchanted Fish, a fisherman who must supply the King with fish or lose his head is saved by a little red fish — at the price of the daughter who comes out to meet him — and the girl, taken to a palace at the bottom of the sea, lights the forbidden candle and sees the beautiful prince who sleeps beside her. In La Tenquita, a little bird whose foot the snow has burned follows a chain of blame — Sun, Cloud, Wind, Wall, Mouse, Cat, Dog, Stick, Fire, Water, Ox, Knife and Man — all the way to the Lord Himself, who sends her home to her nestlings with her foot made whole. And in The King Has a Little Horn, a barber sworn to secrecy over the King's little horn whispers the secret into a hole in the earth — until the little capachito flowers that sprout there proclaim it to the whole city. The episode opens and closes with its theme, Crimson Peak, heard also briefly between the stories.
Chapters
0:39 The Little Enchanted Fish
11:16 La Tenquita
18:33 The King Has a Little Horn
Further tales of Part One are not read on this shelf, each excluded by name after a full reading: El Soldadillo (No. 1) · Delgadina y el Culebrón (No. 3) · El Gallito (No. 5 — heard in Spain, not Chilean tradition) · La Tortilla o el Canarito Encantado (No. 6) · El Cuerpo sin Alma (No. 8) · Las siete Ciegas (No. 10) · Los tres Consejos (No. 12) · El Loro Adivino (No. 13) · Hermosura del Mundo (No. 16) · El Árbol de las tres Manzanas de Oro (No. 17) · Los Hijos del Pescador (No. 18) · El Compadrito León, potito quemado (No. 19) · El Miñaco (No. 20) · Chilindrín y Chilindrón (No. 21) · Juan Valiente, el de la Vaquilla (No. 22) · Gallarín y el Gigante (No. 24) · El cuento de los tres difuntos (No. 34). The book's Part Two, "Mitos, Tradiciones, Casos" — 43 short belief-notes, legends and memorates, not tales proper — stands on the bench as a class and is not read here; three of its items are excluded by name: El Chumaco · El Cabro viejo · El Zapatero que se volvía gallo. No claim of completeness for the book is made.
From Cuentos populares en Chile by Ramón A. Laval (1923), public domain — tales II, IV and VII of Part One, complete and in book order, in a fresh in-house English translation from the Spanish. Narrated by Amos. Theme: Crimson Peak.
KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
