Week 7 Reading Notes: Folklore of Laos, Part B
The Legend of the Rice:
- ancient world, superfood=rice of larger grain
- switch to larger ones every year (granaries)
- great haste angered widow
- rice broke into thousands of pieces--small grain (today)
- boy saw 3 men come to gate of town, asked where the are going
- men said why is a boy speaking to us
- boy said he was just asking
- kidnapped boy and took him with them
- men didn't have water but boy did
- men got tired of carrying boy, sold boy for three slaves
- buyers were from his city
- three countries wanted to change stone to gold--worshipped Ta Pome
- Ta Pome wanted each man to kill one of their children--cut up and put in jar
- China=killed pig, Siam=kill dog, India=killed only son
- return to Ta Pome: China=kill pigs for gold, Siam=plow earth for food, India=child resurrected--got to turn stone to gold
- old man sick and undiagnosed
- spirits told him to touch river's brink
- went to prince and told him of vision
- prince believed him--helped him get to river's bank
- found it, drank water, and was cured
- man and woman had daughter trying to find husband
- blind man tried to woo daughter--made eyes look real
- daughter loved him and married him
- man only ate one kind of meat because he won't need to wash the dish
- man plowed rice fields up ridges to widen the planting space
- man couldn't find door when fire in house
- man grabbed snake instead of eggs--wife found out but loved him anyway
Bibliography: Laos Folk-Lore by Katherine Neville Fleeson, with photographs by W.A. Briggs (1899).
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