Well here we are in 2010, and I hope you have all successfully navigated the festive season and the arctic conditions of recent weeks. The first blog entry of the year arrives indebted to writer and Litro contributor Laura Nelson (check out her short stories in Litro here and here). Laura responded to the shout-out for Brazilian folk tales by sending in two little gems she heard while travelling in Brazil. She also sent this link to a great New York Times article about the cordel, Brazil’s folk literature-on-a-string. I’ve got a book on order about the cordel (which is an incredibly difficult thing to find out much about), so I hope I can enlarge on that in a future post.
Without further ado, here are the stories, the first two courtesy of Laura and the third a tale I’ve come upon myself – a Brazilian take on The Tortoise and the Hare, in which outwitting your enemies, not relying on them to take a nap mid-race, is the key to victory. Better advice than Aesop’s, I’d say.
The Tale of the Water Lily
The Vitoria Regia is a beautiful aquatic flower, typical of the Amazon river. The Indians tell the legend of how it came into existence…
Naia was a thoughtful young girl who believed that a handsome warrior god lived on the moon. She fell in love with the moon and tried to reach out to it, but she never could. One night, Naia left her bed and went to the river and saw the moon, large and beautiful, reflected in the water. She threw herself into the pool and drowned. The moon felt sorry for Naia and decided to immortalise her on earth, transforming her into a star of the fresh flowing waters of the Amazon river.
The Creation of the Night
Once upon a time, there was only day and no night. The Big Cobra guarded the night at the bottom of the river. One day, the cobra’s daughter asked her husband if she could see the night. So the husband sent some warriors to the cobra’s house. When they got there, the cobra gave them a coconut and warned them not to open it. On the way back, the warriors heard strange noises coming from the coconut. Full of curiosity, they opened it, and they were plunged into darkness. The daughter said she would separate the day and night like strands of her hair. She pulled out a hair, the sky turned red and the night was born.
The Tortoise and the Stag
On a very hot day, a stag walking through the jungle came upon a tortoise basking in the sunshine. When the stag’s shadow fell across the tortoise, interrupting its sunbathing, the tortoise slowly opened its eyes and greeted the stag with a challenge. ‘You and I should race,’ it said, ‘and whoever wins shall have the right to kill the loser.’
‘Hah!’ scoffed the stag. ‘Challenge accepted! Make your peace, tortoise, for you’ll be worm food as soon as this contest is over.’
The tortoise shrugged its blunt limbs. ‘Whatever you say. Let’s race in three days time. When the midday sun strikes the lightning-burned tree on the edge of the jungle, that’s our starting whistle. The first to cross the great clearing beyond the tree line is the winner.’
‘Done!’ proclaimed the stag, and sauntered away.
When the tortoise had finished its sunbathing, it called together all of its brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces, cousins and in-laws from throughout the jungle. It found each of them a hiding place, under leaf or fern, along the course of the racetrack. When all were in place it was time to start the contest. The stag arrived punctually at the lightning-burned tree and, the instant the first ray of midday sun hit the trunk, shot away and left the tortoise trailing behind.
When the stag had been racing for a minute, he shouted over his shoulder, ‘How are you getting on? I’m way ahead of you.’
‘No you’re not,’ said a voice from up ahead. And there was the tortoise, a little further along the race course.
Shocked, the stag spurred onwards and overtook the tortoise. When he had covered some more distance, he yelled again over his shoulder, ‘How are you getting on? I’m way ahead of you.’
‘No you’re not,’ said a voice from up ahead. And there was the tortoise, a little further along the race course.
The stag put his head down and willed his legs to sprint faster than they had ever sprinted. But it was no use. Every time he called out ‘How are you getting on?’, there would be the tortoise maintaining its lead. The stag forced his hooves to hammer the ground harder, his muscles to strain all the stronger, and in this fashion he pushed his body so hard that his heart burst, and he dropped down dead on the race course.
And whenever the tortoise looks back on that race, it brings a warm smile to its face.
Thanks again to Laura Nelson for her help with these. Laura has a story, set in Brazil, coming up in Decongested Tales, and recently wrote a guest blog at Strictly Writing.
