Folk Tales

Folk tales 001

Folk tale (ESL 5301-001)

Following is a folk tale told by almost all moms/grandparents to their small kids/grandchildren while eating.  The following story has the moral that “One Should Think Well before Acting.”

                                                       The Crow and the Fox

                 

                  Once upon a time, a fox and a crow lived in a forest.  The crow, being small, took a piece of food from a neighboring house and was happily eating perching on a tree top.  A fox that passed through the way noticed the crow and immediately came up with a plan to trick the crow.  The fox slowly approached the tree and spoke to the crow: “My dear friend, the whole jungle was filled with unpleasant sounds without you and your sheer presence brings life to the jungle.  It would be great if you could sing a song with your sweet voice for other creatures in the forest”.  The crow, flattered by the fox's continuous compliments, opened its mouth to sing.  As soon as it opened its mouth, the entire food fell down and the fox happily ate all the food.  The crow looked at the fox helplessly and learnt an important lesson of life – “Think before you act”. (Sriramvignesh Mani)

The Pony across the River

                  Pony and his mother lived near a small river; he had a very happy lifetime with his mother. One day, his mother said to pony: “Pony, you have grown up, would you help me to carry this bag full of food to your aunt’s home which is located in a village right across the river?” “Certainly. I would be very glad,” said pony.

                  He was laden with food and came quickly to the small river. But there was no bridge over the river. He wanted to go across the river, but he didn’t know how deep the water was. When he was wondering, he saw a cow was eating not far away. Pony quickly ran to cow: "Dear uncle, do you know how deep the river is, or whether I could go across the river? The cow said smoothly with a smile, “don’t worry about it. The river is just to my leg."

                  Pony went back the river and tried to go through the river. At this time, he heard a voice saying, "Pony, pony don’t go! This river is so deep that it drowned my friend last week.” A small squirrel shouted, “Two days ago, one of my friends accidentally fell into the river; the river took him and swept him away."

                  Pony had no idea, how he could go across the river. He had to go back and ask his mother. He returned home and told his mother.  "Never mind, let's go and see," said his mother.

                  Pony and his mother came to the river again. “Try to cross the river by yourself,” Mother said. Pony ventured cautiously, step by step walking through the river. Oh, he knew, neither was it like the cow says, a river so shallow, nor like the squirrel says, so deep. It is most important to do things by oneself. “Thank you, mother." He was particularly happy today.

                  Through this story we know, if we want to understand the truth, the only way is to go and try by ourselves. (Songhe)

Arabian Nights

                  Arabian nights or as the literal translation of the Arabic name “one thousand and one nights” is one of the most famous and probably advanced collections of fiction stories in Arabic literature. The collection was published in a book with the same name, which was translated to many languages and became very famous worldwide.

                  The book tells the story of a king called Shahriar, who used to marry a new wife each day and kill her by dawn. Shahriar kept this habit for long time, until all the girls in the city were either killed or escaped to save their lives.

                  One day, one of the guards of Shahriar told him that the prime minister had a beautiful daughter whom he was hiding for long time, her name was Shahrzad. The king immediately called for his prime minister, and asked to marry his daughter. The prime minister was shocked, but couldn’t say a word other than, yes my lord; then he went home, and sadly told his daughter about the king's proposal, and asked her to escape, while he would stay and probably be killed. Shahrzad was a smart girl; she asked her father not to be worried and to proceed with the wedding arrangements. She simply had a plan; every night she would start a new fiction story to the king, and keep telling the story until dawn; then she would stop and promise to continue the next night; once a story was finished, she immediately would start a new one. The king was impressed by the stories, and was always eager to know how each one would end. Shahrzad kept doing this for a long, long time, until Shahriar forgot about his bad habit, and they lived happily ever after. (Muhammad A. Muhammad)

Folk Tale

                  This is a story  about  a  farmer  and  his  four  sons.

                  Once upon  a  time,  there  was  a  farmer  in  a  small  village  of  India.  He  had  huge  lands  on  which  he  used  to  cultivate  rice  and  wheat.  He  had  four  sons  who  always  used  to  keep  fighting  with  one  another  on  various  petty  issues.  He  used  to  get  sad  and  depressed  seeing  his  sons  arguing  all  the  time  with  each  other.  Overall,  it  was  not  a  happy,  united family  and  the  farmer  was  not  able  to  make  his  sons  realize  the  importance  of  togetherness  in  a  family. 

                  He was  around  75  years  old,  and  the  thought  of  his  sons  fighting  with  each  other  always  used  to  disturb  him.  One  day,  the  farmer  was  very  sick  and  with  each  passing  day,  his  health  started deteriorating.  The  sons  called  the  local  doctor  near  their  village  to  check  their  father  and  give  him  medicines.  The  doctor  made  it  very  clear  that  maybe,  these were the  last  few  days  of  the  farmer’s  life  and  that  he  wouldn’t  be  able  to  survive  for  a  long  time.  Once  the  farmer  got  to  know  this,  he  decided  to  make  the  property  papers  in  order  to  divide  all  his  property  and  money  between  his  four  sons.  But he  was  very  confused  about  the  ratio  in  which  his  property  should  be  divided.  He didn’t  know  if  he  should  divide  all  his  possessions  equally  amongst  his  four  sons  or  he  should  give  claim  of  his  property  in  accordance  with  the  age  of  his  sons. 

                  The sad part  was  that  even  when  the  farmer  was  on  death  bed,  the  four  sons  kept  fighting  with  each  other  on  the  issue  of  division  of  the  property.  The  farmer  made  a  resolution  that  before  dying,  he  would  sort  out  all  the  issues  between  the  four  brothers,  so  that  after  his  death,  they  wouldn’t  fight  with  each  other  anymore.  He  decided  to  teach  them  a  lesson  by  asking  them  to  do  a  small  activity.  He  asked  each  of  his  sons  to  bring  a  small,  thin  wood  stick  and  then  asked  each  one  of  them  to  break  their  wood  stick.  Everyone  was  successful  in  doing  what  their  father  told  them  to  do.  He  again  asked  each  of  his  four  sons  to  bring  a  small,  thin  wood  stick  but  this  time,  he  asked  them  to  tie  together  all  these  four  wood  sticks  in  and  make  a  bundle  of  them.  Once  his  sons  were  finished  following  his  instructions,  he  then  asked  them  to  break  this  bundle  of  wood  sticks.  This time none of his  son  was  able  to  break  the  bundle.  Seeing their sad  faces,  he  asked  all  of  them  to  come  and  sit  beside  him.  He  told  them that his four sons were like four wood sticks.  If they kept on fighting like  this, anyone might very easily break the bond of the family. But if the four of them didn’t argue  or  fight  with  each  other  over  small  issues  and  instead  tried  to  solve  them  by  talking patiently with each other, their family would get strengthened and no outsider  would be able to break their bond.

                  Our  families  are  also  like  small,  thin  wood  sticks.  If  we  keep  fighting  or  judging  each  other  over  several  issues,  we  won’t  be  able  to  maintain  a  healthy,  peaceful  living.  But,  if  we  sort  out  our  issues  and  problems  by  talking  openly  and  calmly  with  each  other,  we  would  live  a  happy  and  healthier  life  and  no  one  would  be  able  to  break  our  bond  in  our  worst  situations.

                  So, what did we learn from this story? We learnt that “unity is strength”. This story  makes us realize that we can conquer the greatest challenges in our lives if we have a  healthy, strong, united family to guard us all the time and help us whenever we need  them.  (Harnoor Kaur)

                                                                     Folk Tale
 

                  In ancient China, there was a man working on his farm one day. Suddenly, a fat rabbit rushed out quickly and crashed into a tree. The rabbit died immediately because it broke its neck. The farmer just witnessed the whole process, so he took the rabbit home for dinner. The rabbit was fresh and juicy; since the farmer was very poor, this dinner was best of the year he ever had. Watching the bones leaving on the plate, the man started to doubt himself, “Even though I work hard on the farm every day, what I get cannot satisfy me at all. Today I did nothing but watched the rabbit hitting the tree and died, but I got a wonderful dinner at the end. So why do I have to work?” Then an idea was coming to him. In the next day, he discarded all his plow tools and sat next to the tree to wait for the same thing to happen. He believed that another rabbit would die for the same reason in some days, and he did not want to miss it. Day by day, the farm was overgrown with grass, and the man could not even see any shadow of rabbit. His story became popular in his town, and parents would use this story to give their kids a lesson that people should always rely on their own hands but not luck. (Jieying)

The Story of Tich Chu

                  Once upon a time, in a small village in Vietnam, there was a little boy named Tich Chu. He was an orphaned child, living with his grandma. Grandma had to work very hard to raise him; she gave him all her love and thoughtful care. However, Tich Chu seemed not to love her; he spent all his time hanging out with his friends and never cared about Grandma.

                  One day, Grandma was so sick that she could not get up. Meanwhile, Tich Chu was not home, still busy playing with his friends. Grandma was very thirsty, and she started calling Tich Chu:

                  - Tich Chu, please give me a sip of water. I am very thirsty.

She called him one time, two times, and three times; but Tich Chu did not show up. Then, she turned into a bird and flew away. Just at that moment, Tich Chu came home looking for something to eat, and he saw everything that happened to Grandma. He ran after the bird and cried:

                  - No, Grandma, don’t fly away. Please stay with me!

                  - I am very thirsty; I have to find water – replied the bird; and she kept flying away.

                  Tich Chu kept running after the bird while crying bitterly. Finally, the bird landed next to a spring and started to drink water there. Tich Chu tried to approach the bird and insisted:

                  - Grandma, I’m sorry, I’m very sorry. Please come back with me. I will give you water, I will take care of you. Please don’t leave me alone.

                  - It’s too late, too late, Tich Chu. I cannot turn back to a human anymore. Cuckoo, cuckoo, koo…- said sadly the bird.

                  Tich Chu burst into crying desperately. He felt regret for having afflicted his Grandma before, and he did not know how to have her back with him. Suddenly, a beautiful fairy appeared and asked why he was crying. Tich Chu told everything to the fairy. Then, the fairy said:

                  - If you want your Grandma back to be a human, you should let her drink the water from a magical spring in a distant land. It is very far from here. I am not sure if you can do it.

                  - Yes, I can. I will do whatever to turn my Grandma back to a human – said determinedly Tich Chu.

                  The fairy gave him a pitcher and showed him how to get to the magic spring. After going over many mountains and rivers, finally, Tich Chu found the spring and filled his pitcher with its water. He came back and had the Grandma bird drank that water. The magic indeed worked; his Grandma was back to being a human. From that day on, Tich Chu always took good care of Grandma, and he never left her alone in sickness.  (Nam Giang Trinh)

                                                      The Rich Man and his Utensils
 
                 Once upon a time there was a rich man. He was very greedy and his house was full of costly utensils. Poor people in his town used to borrow his utensils whenever they had ceremonies in their home. The people had to return the utensil along with a hefty rent after the use. The greedy rich man suddenly increased the rent of his utensils and the people became very sad. One day a very strange thing happened. One man who borrowed the rich man’s utensils returned a couple of utensils more than those he borrowed. The rich man got perplexed and asked the man how come it was possible. The man replied that some of the utensils were pregnant while he took them home and they delivered baby utensils in his home. He also said it was his duty to return both parent and baby utensils back to the owner. The rich man couldn’t believe this story. He knew that it was not possible. However, because of his greedy nature, he thought it was ok to accept the extra vessels from the man. After several days the man again came back to borrow some of the very expensive utensils from the rich man. The rich man gladly gave him all the expensive utensils that he had, in the belief that he would get more utensils and money in return. The man took all the borrowed expensive utensils to his home. Several days passed and the man was not returning the expensive utensils. The rich man became restless and worried. One day he decided to meet the man who borrowed his expensive utensils and went to see him in his home. After some time the rich man reached the house of the other man and inquired of him why he was not returning the expensive utensils. The man replied that this time all the expensive utensils that he borrowed died in his home. So it was not possible for him to return them back. The rich man became silent and couldn’t say anything back to the other man. The moral of the story is, "greediness will make you lose everything.” (Sankar)

Genius Mahosod and the Cow Thief

     Once upon a time, there was a seven-year-old boy named Mahosod. He was very clever. He solved many hard problems easily. People in his town assigned him to be a judge. Whenever people had conflicts, they would go to see him and admit his justice. And his justice never let anyone down.

     This is a chapter in his very long story. A cow owner goes to take a shower in a big lake. He ties his cow with a tree and hopes it is safe. A bad guy walks past and then he takes. The owner on the lake sees everything the thief makes. (I try to make a poem)

     The owner runs to catch that bad guy, but he has to cry. The bad guy denies. “You can’t verify. There are no other eyes.” The bad one smiles. They begin to fight, until some people stop by. The people apologize; they can’t justify, but they know who can try. They take the two guys; they go to Mahosod’s help.

     Mahosod does it easily. The genius asks them simply, “What food you feed this cow?” The thief is so proud; he does take care of his cow. He fed it milk and grains. The true owner complains, he is so vain. I’m a poor man. I fed it with grasses.

     Mahosod smiles. He tells the guy to mix a medicine. If he feeds this kind, the cow will vomit. Then he feeds the medicine to the cow, and waits for some hours, the cow vomits it out.

     Its vomit is the grasses. Then Mahosod asks, which one is arch? The people don’t doubt that the one who’s false. The vomit is grasses, then it ate grasses. Then the man who said that he fed it with milk and grains is the thief. The owner receives, whose cow was thieved. And the thief runs away.

     People salute Mahosod again. The news of his intelligence comes to the King. Then what is the next thing? What’s happening? Please be waiting 'til the next chapter.   (Ariyawat)  

                                                      The Walker and his Animals

            A man, his horse and his dog walked by a rural road when suddenly lightning fell and killed all three immediately. The man did not notice that he had died and continued on his way with the horse and the dog.
            The road had a strong slope. The weather was very hot. It was very dusty also and they had walked a long distance. They were exhausted and thirsty.
            After a curve, the man saw a large beautifully decorated gate. He could see that the gate was the entrance to a huge garden with all kinds of trees and flowers. He saw that in the middle of the garden a huge pool offered fresh water to its visitors.
             The man walked in the direction of the guard that protected the gate. After greeting, the man asked him about the name of that beautiful and comfortable place. The guard said this is the heaven. The man, surprised, said: Oh!!.. Marvelous, we are in the heaven. We are thirsty!. The guard, pointing at the pool, said to the man: In this place, you can drink all water you want. Please, go ahead…but, only you can pass. The man said: My horse and my dog also want to drink water. They also are thirsty. I am sorry – said the guard - In this place the entrance of animals is not allowed.
            The man was angry because he was so thirsty, but he did not think of drinking water alone. He got up, said good bye to the guard and continued walking.
            The road had its huge slope yet and the sun heated up even more. They were really tired at that moment when they arrived to another place. This time the little gate was made of old wood. He could see that the gate led to a dusty road which finished in a puddle of water surrounded by several trees. Next to a tree, an old man was sitting on the ground; he probably was sleeping. The thirsty man and his animals entered and walked in direction of the old man. Good morning!, said the walker. The old man answered with a movement of his head. The man continued: We are thirsty: my dog, my horse and me, said the man. The old man responded: There is a little river next to those rocks. You and your animals can drink all the water you need. The walker and his animals went to the river and they gorged their thirst. After that, they came back to where the old man was sitting and thanked the man for the courtesy. The old man responded: You and your animals can come back when you like. After thanks again, the man said: What is the name of this place? The heaven, answered the old man. Really? But we just passed another place a few miles ago, and its guard told me that was the Heaven! Said the man, That is not the heaven, it is the hell. Said the old man, You should prohibit others from using your name. This information is false and can induct to errors! said the man. No way - rebuked the old man – they really do a favor to us, because in that place stay all those capable of abandoning their best friends. (Elliot)