Philippine Folk Tales eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 167 pages of information about Philippine Folk Tales.

Philippine Folk Tales eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 167 pages of information about Philippine Folk Tales.

As soon as Lumawig reached Pokis he built a big fire which warmed the brother and sister; and the water evaporated so that the world was as it was before, except that now there were mountains.  The brother and sister married and had children, and thus there came to be many people on the earth.

Lumawig on Earth

Igorot

One day when Lumawig, [100] the Great Spirit, looked down from his place in the sky he saw two sisters gathering beans.  And he decided to go down to visit them.  When he arrived at the place he asked them what they were doing.  The younger, whose name was Fukan, answered: 

“We are gathering beans, but it takes a long time to get enough, for my sister wants to go bathing all the time.”

Then Lumawig said to the older sister: 

“Hand me a single pod of the beans.”

And when she had given it to him, he shelled it into the basket and immediately the basket was full. [101] The younger sister laughed at this, and Lumawig said to her: 

“Give me another pod and another basket.”

She did so, and when he had shelled the pod, that basket was full also.  Then he said to the younger sister: 

“Go home and get three more baskets.”

She went home, but when she asked for three more baskets her mother said that the beans were few and she could not need so many.  Then Fukan told her of the young man who could fill a basket from one pod of beans, and the father, who heard her story, said: 

“Go bring the young man here, for I think he must be a god.”

So Fukan took the three baskets back to Lumawig, and when he had filled them as he did the other two, he helped the girls carry them to the house.  As they reached their home, he stopped outside to cool himself, but the father called to him and he went up into the house and asked for some water.  The father brought him a cocoanut shell full, and before drinking Lumawig looked at it and said: 

“If I stay here with you, I shall become very strong.”

The next morning Lumawig asked to see their chickens, and when they opened the chicken-coop out came a hen and many little chicks.  “Are these all of your chickens?” asked Lumawig; and the father assured him that they were all.  He then bade them bring rice meal that he might feed them, and as the chickens ate they all grew rapidly till they were cocks and hens.

Next Lumawig asked how many pigs they had, and the father replied that they had one with some little ones.  Then Lumawig bade them fill a pail with sweet potato leaves and he fed the pigs.  And as they ate they also grew to full size.

The father was so pleased with all these things that he offered his elder daughter to Lumawig for a wife.  But the Great Spirit said he preferred to marry the younger; so that was arranged.  Now when his brother-in-law learned that Lumawig desired a feast at his wedding, he was very angry and said: 

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Philippine Folk Tales from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.