Philippine Folk-Tales — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Philippine Folk-Tales
John Stuart Mill · en
In the morning, Maria went to the king and told him the truth about
her husband. Her father, however, thought that she was crazy, and
when she insisted, invited her to accompany him to Amo-Mongo's farm,
in order to convince her of her error. Many people went with them,
and Amo-Mongo led them to the farm, which was really Singalong's,
but told them that it belonged to himself. Besides other things,
Singalong had planted many fruits, among them atimon and candol.
Amo-Mongo, seeing the diversity of fruits, began to eat all he could,
until he became unable to move a step. Whenever his wife urged him
to come away, he would take an atimon under his arm and a candol or
so in his hands, until at last his wife, angry at his greediness,
gave him a push which caused him to fall headlong, striking his head
against a stone and being instantly killed.
Then Singalong, who had secretly followed the crowd from the palace,
showed himself to the king in his proper form. After making suitable
explanations, he led them to a fine palace in the middle of the
hacienda. There they all lived together, but Pusong and his wife,
who in former times had treated Singalong very harshly, giving him
only the bones and scraps from the table, were now obliged to act as
servants in the kitchen of the king's new palace.
CHAPTER 8
The Enchanted Ring.
There was once a king who had suffered for a long time with a painful
disease, in spite of all the efforts of the doctors to cure it. At
last he caused a proclamation to be made that whoever could cure him
should marry his daughter as a reward.
One day a snake appeared before the king and asked permission to cure
him. The king at first refused, but the snake said that his body
contained some gall whose power to cure was wonderful, so the king
consented to try it, and was soon cured.
The snake was really a prince who had been changed into this form
by enchantment. Every night he took on his proper form and went for
a walk around the city. His wife once saw him do this, so she asked
him to tell her the truth. The snake told her his secret, but forbade
her to tell any one, on pain of his leaving her.