Laos Folk-Lore of Farther India — Part 2: Cheating the Priest and Other Tales
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Part Two of the shelf: seven more tales from Laos Folk-Lore of Farther India (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1899) by Katherine Neville Fleeson, who lived among the Laos people, learned their language, and wrote these tales down as they were told to her, when they had never been written down before. Billed by collector and book, as tales of the Laos country in the old kingdom of Siam; not a survey of all the peoples of Laos, and no completeness is claimed. Fleeson's book holds forty-eight tales; the tales passed over at this gate are named, with their reasons, in the shelf register.
Cheating the Priest — a man and his wife, who have no daughter at all, take a rain-shelter-refusing priest's gifts on the promise of their "beautiful daughter", then report her dead. The Ungrateful Fisherman — a crow makes a poor fisherman a ruler; years on, he drives all crows from his fields, and is carried back to his poor house. The Legend of the Rice — why the rice has been small-grained, and gathered by hand, ever since a widow struck a grain in anger. Love's Secrets — a god turns a faithful woodsman's wood to gold, and a laggard's wood to snakes. Strife and Peace — a hundred pieces of silver test a couple that always quarrels, and a couple that never does. Honesty Rewarded — a poor family will not say the chow's silver and gold axes are theirs, and is given all three. The Magic Well — a sick prince, an old man's vision, and the well high in the face of a mountain rock, whose water heals him.
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
2:06 Cheating the Priest
5:16 The Ungrateful Fisherman
8:10 The Legend of the Rice
10:06 Love's Secrets
13:22 Strife and Peace
16:46 Honesty Rewarded
19:19 The Magic Well
Katherine Neville Fleeson, Laos Folk-Lore of Farther India (Fleming H. Revell Company, 1899) — public domain.
Narrated by Madame de Pamplemousse. Music: theme, "Avian Impressions" — heard at the opening and the close, and as a short separator between the stories; the tales themselves are read dry.
KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.
