Part 10 of Folk Tales of the Philippines continues in the book's own order at Tale 22. Three of these four tales turn on a bargain with the Devil — and on the kindness, cleverness, and nerve that beat him — and the fourth on a lazy boy, a kind snake, and a ring that answers questions.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
In "The Reward of Kindness," Idó, promised to the Devil before his birth, wears the Devil's bear-skin through seven years of wandering, spending a bag of money only in doing good — and an old woman's gratitude, and her youngest daughter's glad consent, finish his story. Told by Elisa Cordero, a Tagalog from Pagsanjan, La Laguna. In "Pedro and Satan," Pedro goes down to hell itself, ties Satan fast to his own rocking-chair, and frightens him with the crosses on his gown until the golden document binding his family is given up and burned. Told by Pedro D. L. Sorreta, a Bicol from Catanduanes. In "The Devil and the Guachinango," a devil who came courting in noble dress is unmasked, jarred, and buried — and the day-labourer hired to bury the jar keeps digging him up to bargain, until the devil's own cure for a princess's headache wins him a crown. Told by José Laki of Guagua, Pampanga. In "Juan Sadut," the village idler, left sleeping beside a snake-hole, receives the snake-king's ring, and with its counsel blinds the king's tiger, wins the dragon's burning stone without meeting the dragon, and answers the one question no one could answer. Told by Nicolas Zafra, an Ilocano from San Fernando, La Union.
A word on these tales, told plainly. The Devils' bargains stand as condition and speech — the road to hell is threatened, never travelled by any soul in them, and each Devil is beaten without a blow struck in anger: by kindness faithfully spent, by a chair-rope and a gown of crosses, and by church bells and bluff. Two passages stand at the book's own weight, named here: Piriang whips the unmasked devil with a sting-ray's tail in a single passage before he is forced into the jar, and the king's cure-or-die agreement stands as speech only, never carried out. In "Juan Sadut," the father's resolve to leave his sleeping son beside the snake-hole is stated and undone in the same movement — the snake proves kind, and the boy is never harmed — and the arena fight with the king's tiger is told in two sentences, as the book tells it. One slip of the 1921 printing is corrected in our rendering: at the close of "The Reward of Kindness," the returned traveller comes to the old woman's house, the family the passage is about. The next tale in the book, "An Act of Kindness," stands held at this collection's gate, awaiting the owner's ruling, and Tale 17 remains held, untouched. The book's footnote markers are kept out, and its comparative notes stand in the book, unread here.
The book's storytellers, kept with honour: Elisa Cordero ("The Reward of Kindness"); Pedro D. L. Sorreta ("Pedro and Satan"); José Laki ("The Devil and the Guachinango"); Nicolas Zafra ("Juan Sadut").
Chapters:
00:32 — The Reward of Kindness
06:14 — Pedro and Satan
10:25 — The Devil and the Guachinango
17:44 — Juan Sadut
Source: Dean S. Fansler (ed.), Filipino Popular Tales, Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society, Vol. XII (1921) — the tales written down in English by the Filipino narrators credited above; public-domain 1921 edition (Project Gutenberg eBook #8299). The collectors' notes stand in the book, unread here. Our telling is a fresh in-house rendering of the 1921 text. Music: opening and closing theme, "La Rive des Esprits".
Thank you for listening — the Philippine tales continue on this shelf.
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