Notes

This story, which is a mixture of well-known motifs and incidents, really falls into two parts, though an attempt is made at the end to bind them together. The first part, ending with the treachery of the brothers after the hero has made his underground journey and rescued the two beautiful maidens from their giant captors, has resemblances to parts of the “Bear’s Son” cycle. The second half of the story is a well-developed member of the “Forgotten Betrothed” cycle, preserving, in fact, all the characteristic incidents, and also prefacing to this whole section details that form a transition between it and part 1. I am unable to point out any European parallels to the story as a whole, but analogues of both parts are very numerous. As the latter half constitutes the major portion of our story, we shall consider it first.

The fundamental and characteristic incidents of the “Forgotten Betrothed” cycle (sometimes called the “True Bride” cycle) are as follows:—

A The performance by the hero of difficult tasks through the help of the loved one, who is usually the daughter of a magician.

B The magic flight of the couple, either with transformations of themselves or with the casting behind them of obstacles to retard the pursuer.

C The forgetting of the bride by the hero because he breaks a taboo (the cause of the forgetting is usually a parental kiss, which the hero should have avoided).

D The re-awakened memory of the hero during his marriage ceremony or wedding feast with a new bride, either through the conversation of the true bride with an animal or through the true bride’s kiss. In some forms of the story, the hero’s memory is restored on the third of three nights sold to the heroine by the venial second bride.4

E The marriage of the hero and heroine.

Andrew Lang (Custom and Myth, 2d ed., 87–102) traces incidents A and B as far back as the myth of Jason, the earliest literary reference to which is in the Iliad (vii, 467; XXIII, 747). But this story does not contain the last three incidents: clearly they have come from some other source, and have been joined to the first two,—a natural process in the development of a folk-tale. The episode of the magic flight is very widely distributed: Lang mentions Zulu, Gaelic, Norse, Malagasy, Russian, Italian, and Japanese versions. Of the magic flight combined with the performance of difficult tasks set by the girl’s father, the stories are no less widely scattered: Greece, Madagascar, Scotland, Russia, Italy, North America (Algonquins), Finland, Samoa (p. 94). The only reasonable explanation of these resemblances, according to Lang, is the theory of transmission; and if Mr. Lang, the champion of the “anthropological theory,” must needs explain in this rather business-like way a comparatively simple tale, what but the transmission theory can explain far more complicated stories of five or six distinct incidents in the same sequence?

The “Forgotten Betrothed” cycle was clearly invented but once; when or where, we shall not attempt to say. But that its excellent combination of rapid, marvellous, and pathetic situations has made it a tale of almost universal appeal, is attested to by the scores of variants that have been collected within the last half-century and more. In his notes to Campbell’s Gaelic story, “The Battle of the Birds,” No. 2, Köhler cites Norwegian, Swedish, Italian, German, and Hungarian versions (Orient und Occident, 2 : 107). Ralston (pp. 132–133), Cosquin (2 : No. 32 and notes), Crane (No. XV and notes, pp. 343–344), Bolte (in his additions to Köhler, 1 : 170–174), and Bolte-Polívka (to Nos. 51, 56, 113) have added very full bibliographies. It is unnecessary here to list all the variants of this story that have been collected, but we will examine some of the analogues to our tale from the point of view of the separate incidents.

After the hero of our present story has been deserted by his treacherous brothers, and has found himself once more in the under-world, he is told by a mysterious voice to go to the Land of the Pilgrims, where he will find his fate. He meets an old man, who directs him to a hermit. The hermit, in turn, directs the youth to another hermit, who learns from an eagle where the Land of the Pilgrims is, and directs the bird to carry the youth thither. While the story does not state that the Land of the Pilgrims is on the “upper-world,” we must suppose that it is, and that the eagle is the means whereby the hero escapes from the underground kingdom. In a large number of members of the “Bear’s Son” cycle, to which, as has been said, the first part of our story belongs, this is the usual means of escape. The incident is also found in a large number of tales not connected otherwise with this group (see Cosquin, 2 : 141–144). It is sometimes combined with the quest for the water of life, with which in turn is connected the situation of the hero’s being referred from one guide to another (giants, sages, hermits, etc.), as in our story (cf. Grimm, No. 97, and notes; also Bolte-Polívka to No. 97, especially 2 : 400; Thorpe, 158; Tawney, 1 : 206; Persian Tales, 2 : 171). This whole section appears to have been introduced as a transition between parts 1 and 2.

The second part of our story opens with the “bride-wager” incident (see Von Hahn, 1 : 54, “Oenomaosformel”), though I can point to no parallel of Juan’s method of making love to the princess; that is, by means of a letter conveyed by a kite.

The tasks which the hero is obliged to perform vary greatly in the different members of the “Forgotten Betrothed” cycle. Juan has to plant wheat and bake bread from the ripened grain in twenty-four hours, separate a jar of mongo from a jar of sand, and fetch a ring from the sea. The first task imposed by the king has analogies in a number of European tales. In Groome’s No. 34 the Devil says to the hero, “Here is one more task for you: drain the marsh, and plough it, and sow it, and to-morrow bring me roasted maize” (p. 106). In Groome’s No. 7 the king says to the old man, “See this great forest! Fell it all, and make it a level field; and plough it for me, and break up all the earth; and sow it with millet by to-morrow morning. And mark well what I tell you: you must bring me a cake [made from the ripened millet-seed, clearly; see p. 23] made with sweet milk.” Cosquin (2 : 24) cites a Catalan and a Basque story in which the hero has not only to fell a great forest, but to sow grain and harvest it. In kind this is the same sort of impossible task imposed on Truth in a Visayan story (JAFL 19 : 100–102), where the hero has to beget, and the princess his wife to bring forth, in one night, three children. Helpful eagles solve this difficulty for Truth by conveying to him three newly-born babes. The second task is a well-known one, and is found in many members of the “Grateful Animals” cycle. Usually it is ants, which the hero has earlier spared, that perform the service of separating two kinds of seed, etc. (see Tawney, 1 : 361 and note). The mixture of sand and mongo, in our story, is not a very happy conception. Originally it must have been either gravel and mongo, or else mongo and some other kind of lentil nearly resembling it in size. The third task, with the method of accomplishing it, is perhaps the most interesting of all. In a Samoan story of the “Forgotten Betrothed” cycle (Lang, op. cit., p. 98), the heroine bids the hero cut her body into pieces and cast them into the sea. There she becomes a fish and recovers the ring. In a Catalan tale (Rondallayre, 1 : 41) the hero is also required to fetch a ring from the bottom of the sea. His loved one tells him to cut her to pieces, taking care not to let any part drop to the ground, and to throw all into the water. In spite of all his care, he lets fall to earth one drop of blood. The heroine recovers the ring, but lacks the first joint of her little finger when she resumes her original shape.

The “magic flight” is discussed by Cosquin (1 : 152–154) and Macculloch (167 ff.). Two kinds of transformation are to be noted in connection with this escape: the pursued either transform themselves, and thus escape detection by the pursuer, or else cast behind them magic objects, which turn into retarding and finally insurmountable obstacles in the path of the pursuer. In our story the transformations are of the second type, as they are in the story of “Pedro and the Witch” (No. 36). So far as I know, the first type does not occur in Filipino folk-tales. Both types are found frequently in Occidental Märchen, but in Oriental stories the second seems to predominate over the first (see Cosquin’s citations of Oriental occurrences of this incident). In Somadeva (Tawney, 1 : 355 ff.) we have two flights and both types of escape. As to the details of the flight itself in our story, we may note that the comb becoming a thicket of thorns has many analogues. The ring becoming seven mountains suggests with its magic number an Oriental origin. With spittle turning into a lake or sea, compare similar transformations of drops of water and a bladder full of water (Macculloch, 171–172).

The incident of the “forgetting of the betrothed” is usually motivated with some sort of broken taboo. When the hero desires to visit his parents, and leaves his sweetheart outside the city, she usually warns him not to allow himself to be kissed. In a Gaelic Märchen he is forbidden to speak; sometimes he is warned by his wife not to eat, etc. (Köhler-Bolte, 172). In our story the taboo is somewhat unusual: the hero is to allow no tears of joy shed by his parents to fall on his cheeks. The idea behind this charge, however, is the same as that behind the forbidden kiss. With the taboo forbidding the partaking of food, compare the episode of the “Lotus-Eaters” in the Odyssey.

In most of the Märchen of this group the re-awakening of the memory of the hero is accomplished through the conversation of two birds (doves or hens) which the forgotten betrothed manages to introduce into the presence of her lover just before he is married to another (Köhler-Bolte, 172; Rittershaus, 150). In our story the heroine asks a dog questions about the tasks she had helped the hero perform. I can point to no exact parallel of this situation, though it agrees in general with the methods used in the other members of the group.

For the first part of our story (with the exception of the introduction), compare Köhler-Bolte, 292–296, 537–543; Gonzenbach, No. 58 and notes; F. Panzer’s “Beowulf,” passim. See also the notes to Nos. 3 and 4 of this collection.

In connection with our story as a whole, I will cite in conclusion two native metrical romances that preserve many of the incidents we have been discussing. The first is a Pangasinan romance (of which I have not the text) entitled “Don Agustin, Don Pedro, and Don Juan.” This story contains the pursuit by the three princes of a snake to cure the sick king their father (the “quest” motif), the descent into the well by the youngest brother, his fight with monsters in the underworld and his rescue of three princesses, the treachery of the older brothers, the final rescue of the hero by the youngest princess. While this story lacks the “forgotten-betrothed” motif, it is unquestionably related with the first part of our folk-tale,5

The second romance, which is one of the most popular and widespread in the Islands, having been printed in at least five of the dialects,—Tagalog, Pampango, Visayan, Ilocano, and Bicol,—I will synopsize briefly, because it is either the source of our folk-tale or has been derived from it. The fact that not all the literary versions agree entirely, and that the story as a folk-tale seems to be so universally known, makes it seem more likely that the second alternative expresses the truth; i.e., that the romance has been derived from the folk-tale. In the Tagalog version the title runs thus: “The Story of Three Princes, sons of King Fernando and Queen Valeriana in the Kingdom of Berbania. The Adarna Bird.” The poem is long, containing 4136 octosyllabic lines. The date of my copy is 1906; but Retana mentions an edition before 1898 (No. 4169). Briefly the story runs as follows:—

The Visayan version of the “Adarna Bird” is practically identical with the Tagalog up to the point where Juan rescues the two princesses from the underworld. When he and they have been drawn to the top of the well by the two older brothers, Juan tells Pedro and Diego to return home with the two maidens, but says that he will continue the search for the magic bird. He later learns that it is in the possession of Maria, daughter of the King of Salermo. He directs his steps thither, falls in love with the princess, and, together with the bird, they return to Berbania. The three brothers are married at the same time. It will be noticed that here the “forgotten-betrothed” motif is lacking altogether.

For a Tagalog folk-tale connected with this romance, but changed so that it is hardly recognizable as a relative, see the story of “The Adorna (sic) Bird” (JAFL 20 : 107–108).

It is interesting to note that the Tagalog romance is definitely reminiscent of the “Swan Maidens” cycle in the method Juan uses to win the affections of Maria, the enchanter’s daughter. For parallels to Juan’s trick of stealing Maria’s clothes while she and her sisters are bathing, see Macculloch, 342 f. For a large collection of “Swan Maiden” stories in abstract, see Hartland, chapters X and XI.

Considering the fact that both parts of our story are practically world-wide in their distribution, it is almost impossible to say where and when the two in combination first existed. I am inclined to think, on the whole, that our Filipino folk-tale is an importation, and is not native. As to the relationship between the popular and the literary versions of the story, I believe that in general the literary has been derived from the popular.