Part 8 of Folk Tales of the Philippines is three tales of wit rewarded — a monkey who is not a monkey, an envious brother ruined by envy alone, and a boy who hides inside a golden music box to win a hidden princess.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
In "Juan wearing a Monkey's Skin," a father who prayed for a son "even if it is in the form of a monkey" hides his monkey-child away; grown, Juan wins a bird's gratitude, bluffs three witches into building a bridge of leaves across the sea, fetches the king's hidden daughter from her castle in the midst of the water — and then casts off the skin. Told by Lorenzo Licup, a Pampango from Angeles, Pampanga. In "Ruined because of Invidiousness," poor Juan plants his dead cow's hide among a butcher's piles and is paid five hundred pesos for it, then frightens a company of armed men out of their sacks of money with the same falling hide; his rich brother Pedro, copying him in envy, kills all his own cattle and finds no buyer for a single hide. Told by Facundo Esquivel, a Tagalog from Jaen, Nueva Ecija. In "Is he the Crafty Ulysses?", Suguid, a boy whose appetite ate up his parents' wealth and who was abandoned in the forest for it, discovers by his learning that the king has a daughter hidden away, and has the goldsmiths build him a purlon — a hollow music box of gold, silver, and precious stones, with a chair and a lamp inside — and is carried singing into the princess's own room. Told by Lorenzo Licup, a Pampango from Angeles, Pampanga.
A word on the road here, told plainly. Between the monkey tale and the Ulysses tale, the book prints its twentieth tale whole — five tellings of the Master Cheat, the poor knave who outwits his rich brother or friend — and only one of the five stands in this part. In the other four ("How Salaksak became Rich"; "Clever Juan and Envious Diego"; "The Two Friends"; "Juan the Orphan") the trickery ends in drownings — an innocent substitute shut in a cage, a box, or a sack and thrown into the water, the envious one following him down — and those four tellings stand held whole, as they stand in the book, awaiting the collection's own ruling; no completeness is claimed for this stretch of the book. The telling that is read here is the one in which envy is punished by ruin alone and no life is taken. In the tales that are read, what harm is threatened stands as words only and is never carried out — a father's first resolve, repented in the same breath; two kings' forfeit-of-your-head conditions, never carried out; Juan's eat-you bluffs to a bird and to three witches, which harm no one; and Suguid's poniard, a prop of his love speech, never raised. Pedro's cattle are killed in a single sentence, at the book's own weight, nothing dwelt on.
The book's storytellers, kept with honour: Lorenzo Licup ("Juan wearing a Monkey's Skin" and "Is he the Crafty Ulysses?"); Facundo Esquivel ("Ruined because of Invidiousness").
Chapters:
00:13 — Juan wearing a Monkey's Skin
09:48 — Ruined because of Invidiousness
13:45 — Is he the Crafty Ulysses?
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: gentle instrumental bed under the narration.
Thank you for listening — Part 9 of the Philippine tales follows on this shelf.
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