Episode Details

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Part 11 of Folk Tales of the Philippines continues in the book's own order at Tale 28. A cheated servant boy, a monkey bride, a grandfather's riddle, and a gambler's single centavo carry these four tales — each won by wit or sheer brass reasoning.

In "Cecilio, the Servant of Emilio," the orphan Cecilio, paid a tenth of his due for four years' service, loses his purse twice to highway robbers, wins it back with an old woman's magic cane, and at last buys her guitar — whose music makes everyone dance, master, magistrate, and soldiers alike, until the cheat is confessed and the boy is freed the richest man in the town. Told by Sancho B. de Leon, a Tagalog from Santa Cruz, Laguna. In "Chonguita," Don Juan's bride proves a monkey — and then the cleverest embroiderer and painter in the kingdom, until the feast-day moment that sets her free of the spell. Told by Pilar Ejercito, a Tagalog from Pagsanjan, Laguna. In "Who is the Nearest Relative?", a grandfather's story within the story poses its hard question: a wife may free only one of three captives — her husband, her son, or her brother. Told by Leopoldo Uichanco, a Tagalog of Calamba, Laguna. In "With One Centavo Juan marries a Princess," a found centavo becomes a cake, a chicken, a dog, an iron bar, a river, and a princess — each step argued so well that the king himself cannot answer it. Told by Gregorio Frondoso, a Bicol.

A word on these tales, told plainly. In "Cecilio," the two robbers who first take the boy's purse fight each other over it and die of their wounds, told in summary; the old woman's cane rains blows on armed robbers who have threatened the boy's life, stopping the moment each surrenders, no injury described; the death sentence on the boy is undone in the tale itself. In "Chonguita," the king's death conditions stand as speech only, never carried out, and the monkey-bride's disenchantment — her husband hurls her against the wall in a single clause, and she stands a beautiful woman in the same breath — is carried at the book's own weight. Three single words of the 1921 printing are corrected in our rendering, plain compositor's slips: "turn away," "fails to do," and "timidly." The tales around this stretch stand as gated: "The Indolent Husband," "The Golden Lock," and "The Three Humpbacks" stand held at this collection's gate, awaiting the owner's ruling, as does "An Act of Kindness" before this part; 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: Sancho B. de Leon ("Cecilio, the Servant of Emilio"); Pilar Ejercito ("Chonguita"); Leopoldo Uichanco ("Who is the Nearest Relative?"); Gregorio Frondoso ("With One Centavo Juan marries a Princess").

Chapters:

00:34 — Cecilio, the Servant of Emilio

09:57 — Chonguita

15:22 — Who is the Nearest Relative?

21:55 — With One Centavo Juan marries a Princess

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, "Three Pairs of Yellow Eyes".

Thank you for listening — the Philippine tales continue on this shelf.

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