- El Saco de Piojo (The Louse-skin Coat)
- This story is about a king who had a daughter. The mother was coming the daughter’s hair one day and found a louse. The daughter brought it to the King and the King placed it in a jar and chose to feed it every day. He was curious how large a louse could be made to grow. It grew larger and larger and he removed it from the jar. One day, it became so huge he decided to kill it and save its skin. He used the skin to create a magnificent coat. He wore the coat and told all the people of the kingdom that if they could tell what the coat was made of, that person could marry his daughter. People guessed things like cattle, deer, dogs, and so on. But no one could guess the right answer. One day, a dirty peasant overheard the king say “No one will ever guess this coat is made of a louse skin!” So the next day, the peasant came to the king and told him the right answer. The king was thrilled and arranged a marriage for the peasant and his daughter. I don’t think this story had a wonderful ending. I think the man who lied to the king and was dishonest about his guess should have ended up being punished instead of living happily ever after. I see a theme with most of these Hispanic tales that involve marriage. Usually when someone is dishonest they are punished somehow. Since its ending was not consistent with other stories I have read, I am not really sure what to think. I guess a theme here could be that it is OK to win no matter how you get there. Whether you lie, cheat, or deceive – as long as you give the right answer in the end then you win. I do not think that is very consistent with the Hispanic culture, either. Since this is a tale, there are many version around the world. My guess is there is a version out there that has a more comprehensive ending that ends up punishing the deceitful man.
- The Smiling Rabbit (The Rabbit and the Jaguar)
- This story is about the rabbit and the jaguar, which reminds me of the rabbit and the tortoise in our culture. The rabbit and the jaguar both live in a home in Mexico. The owners of the two are desperate for food, so they decide to heat up some water to boil the rabbit. The jaguar tells the rabbit this, but the rabbit says they are not. He then tells him to get in the cage and wait for the chocolate the owners will bring him. The rabbit runs away and the jaguar waits for hours. Finally, the jaguar realized he was tricked and ran after the rabbit. He finds him in a cave and threatens the rabbit. The rabbit convinces him he does not know him and has lived in the cave for many years. He also says he could use some help holding up the roof while he goes on top to fix it, or else it will fall down. The jaguar stays in place for many hours again, and the rabbit runs away. The jaguar again realizes he was tricked and runs after the rabbit. He finds the rabbit bouncing happily on a vine hanging from a tree. The jaguar sneaks up behind him and pounces on the vine. He misses the rabbit and the bouncy vine swung the rabbit all the way up to the moon while he laughed along the way. This is why sometimes, you can look at the moon and see a laughing rabbit in it. This one does not have an author and is spread widely as a folk tale. I think the reason this is became a story is because people often want to assign a cause to something in nature they do not understand. Hundreds of years ago, there were no telescopes to find out there were craters on the moon. So, people had to use their imagination and create elaborate stories like this one. I think we often heard of the “man of the moon” here in America. There are so many stories about faces, images, and shapes we can see in the moon. To think of how much time it took to conjure up this elaborate story is amazing. I am not sure what to think about this story because in the end, good did not prevail. The rabbit was deceptive and still got away from the jaguar. I think this one is meant to be more of a light hearted tale of the moon rather than a story with deep themes.
- La Llorana (Omen of Death, The Weeping Woman)
- This is a scarier story, but I found it on a Hispanic children’s folklore website. I believe it must be intended for older children or maybe something like a Halloween story in New Mexico. It is the story of a woman called the Llorana. She was a poor young woman who loved a rich noble man. They were not married and had three children together. She wanted to marry the man but he thought the three children out of wed-lock were considered a disgrace. So, the woman was so desperate she drowned her three children in the river. She ran to the noble man and he still refused to marry her and chose to marry a rich older woman, instead. La Llorana went crazy and ran along the river crying over the loss of her children and the noble man. She regretted her decision to kill her children and apparently still remains along the river weeping and screaming. I read that this story is told in several areas and usually the local river or body of water is substituted. I think this story is just really sad and does not have a great ending like the rest. I think the moral of the story is to value your children (insert family instead, too) over other desires because the things of the world can be flimsy and fleeting but family is really forever. La Llorana was very selfish and greedy to want to marry the rich man, and she was severely punished for it. She now is stuck in limbo and cannot enter a state of rest since she suffers the gilt of murdering her children. I think this story is also intended to just have a big scar factor. I think an important thing to note here is the usage of the world “noble man.” It seems like a lost of these stories have to do with royalty. That is interesting considering Mexico and New Mexico do not have a monarchy. It is a great indicator of the history, too.
- La Reina Mora (The Gypsy Queen)
- This is the story of a prince who finds three oranges while looking for a beautiful woman to marry in the kingdom. He opens two of the three oranges he finds and a beautiful woman appears from the orange and asks the prince for bread. He does not have bread so they go back into the orange. Expecting a third woman to appear in the last orange, he calls for a nearby gypsy to give him bread for a gold coin. He acquires the bread and as he expected, a beautiful woman came out of the orange and he gave her bread. She said he can do anything to her now, so he chose to marry her. However, she was completely naked. He ran away to grab some clothes for her and when he came back the gypsy had replaced her spot and pretended to be the beautiful woman. The prince took her home and married the gypsy. He was miserable. He then found out the original woman was turned into a dove. He changed the dove back, had the gypsy burned at the stake, and they lived happily ever after. This story is shared largely among Hispanic groups, mainly in Mexico and Spain. There is no known author, and there are about 75 different versions of the story floating around. It is believed to come from Oriental background and it is centuries old. I think an important moral lesson to be taught here is that good will always prevail over evil and that evil will certainly be punished, too. After reading the detailed story, I think it was interesting how beauty is valued. The gypsy is referred to as an ugly witch whereas the orange woman is referred to as perfect because she is beautiful. The prince wanted to marry her only because of her beauty, it seems. This is clearly an old story so I do not think that Hispanics are generally shallow or vain but I think it says more about the history and the monarchs of older times and the values back then. Therefore, I do not necessarily believe this is a good indicator of the present day values of people of the Hispanic culture.
- La Camera Prohibia (The Forbidden Chamber)
- This story is about a wizard who kidnaps young, unmarried women. He touches them and hypnotizes them and takes them to his large home. He went to one house and took the oldest sister. He told the woman she can go wherever she would like and do whatever she wants except enter the one prohibited room. She was also given a key and an egg. She gets too curious and looks into the room to find dozens of kidnapped, sleeping women her age. She is frightened and runs away and drops the egg, which then turns red. When the wizard comes home, he sees the red egg and knows she disobeyed. He throws her in the chamber and goes back for the next sister, who does the exact same thing. The wizard then gets the youngest sister, who is wiser. The youngest sister opens the door to the forbidden chamber but runs away and doesn’t drop the egg this time. The wizard is happy and rewards her with marriage. The youngest sister then says he can marry her only after he carries a giant basket of gold to her parents. The girl hides her two older sisters in the basket and he carries it to her parents’ house. Meanwhile, she releases the rest of the girls and when he comes back he locks the wizard in the house and sets it on fire. I think much like the other stories, this one has a good theme that good will prevail and evil will be punished. It seems like evil is always punished with certain death and brutal murders in these stories. I also think this shows how loyal family members are to one another, especially in Hispanic cultures. The youngest sister put her life on the line to save all those girls, and especially her sisters. She was really clever, however, and saved everyone. It was like she valued all the other girls there as her own family and risked a lot to rescue them, too. I don’t think this story would make much sense to mainstream America. People here take things too literally so it is hard to use your imagination when he simply touches women to hypnotize them. Also, it doesn’t really make sense how he carried the two sisters in a basket of gold to the parents. That being said, I think a lot of folktales don’t make much sense in any culture (For example Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Bears, etc).
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