Tiny Tales: Traditional Stories in 100 Words

The Two Sisters

Two sisters, Uma and Purnima, were lost in the jungle.

A tiger attacked; he devoured Uma, but Purnima escaped. A man later rescued her, and they married.

A bamboo grove grew from Uma's bones, and shepherds made flutes from the bamboo. When the shepherds played these flutes, a mysterious woman would emerge; she sang sadly and cooked and cleaned for them, and then disappeared back into the flute.

"That must be my sister!" exclaimed Purnima. She waited at a shepherd's house, and when Uma emerged from the flute, they embraced, and Uma did not go back into the flute again.

Inspired by: "Two Sisters," in Folktales from India, by A. K. Ramanujan, who heard the story from Sitakant Mahapatra.
Notes: You can read about the Santal people of India, Bangladesh and Nepal at Wikipedia. The original version of this story is much more elaborate, and it contains the words of the song that the dying and then dead woman sings. I added the names to make the story easier to tell. Similar legends of "singing bones" are found all over the world.

bamboo flute by nevskysun (abedabun.com)

A Jar of Persian

A village had come under Persian rule, but nobody there spoke Persian. This made doing business difficult, so they sent a man to buy some Persian.

"Do you have Persian for sale?" he asked, but everyone just laughed at him.

Finally, someone said, "I'll sell you a jar of Persian! But don't open it until you get home, or the Persian will escape."

He sold the foolish villager a jar full of wasps.

"Come look!" he shouted when he got back home. "A jar of Persian!" But when he opened the jar, wasps flew out and stung all the villagers.

Inspired by: "Two Jars of Persian," in Folktales from India, by A. K. Ramanujan.
Notes: You can read about the Punjab region, now divided between India and Pakistan, at Wikipedia. The story is specifically about the people of Durrani Pashtun rule of the Punjab, and the jars of Persian come from Jalalabad in what is now Afghanistan. (Hamid Karzai, the former president of Afghanistan, is a Durrani Pashtun.)

jar with cloth lid at picryl

The Scholar and his Beard

A scholar was studying by lamplight late into the night. In one of his books he read: "Men with long beards are fools."

The scholar's beard was quite long. "Alas!" he sighed. "Is it really true? Are men with long beards fools?"

Then he glanced at the lamp and thought to himself, "I just need to burn off my beard!"

So he held his beard over the flame. It caught fire immediately. Then the fire burned his mustache! His eyebrows! All the hair on his head!

Thus he discovered that what he had read in the book was indeed true.

Inspired by: "A Qazi with a Long Beard" in Folktales from India by A. K. Ramanujan, 1991
Notes: You can read about the Marathi people of western India at Wikipedia.

pixlhive: oil lamp

picture

The Tortoise, the Fox, and the Leopard

Tortoise and his friend Fox lived near a pond.

One day Leopard showed up: Fox ran, but Tortoise was trapped.

"What a nice snack!" Leopard exclaimed, but he couldn't eat the tortoise because of the shell.

Fox then came back and said politely, "Good sir, just put that shell into the water. It will get soft, and then you can eat the meat inside."

"Thank you, my friend!" said Leopard. "How kind of you!"

But when Leopard put the shell into the water, Tortoise wriggled free and swam away.

Fox also ran away again.

So Leopard ended up with nothing!

Inspired by: "A Friend in Need" in Folktales from India by A. K. Ramanujan, 1991. The storyteller is M. G. Shashibhooshan.

Notes: You can read about the Malayalam language spoken in Kerala and elsewhere in southern India at Wikipedia.

Indian leopard

Walnuts and Pumpkins

A grumpy man sat under a walnut tree, staring up at the tiny nuts growing on the enormous tree. Then he glanced over to his garden where he saw enormous pumpkins growing on a scrawny vine.

"How foolish God is!" he exclaimed. "The pumpkins obviously belong on the tree and the walnuts on the ground. I'd arrange things differently if I were in charge!"

Then, without warning, a walnut fell down on the man's head.

"Dear God!" he exclaimed. "If that had been a pumpkin, it might have killed me. God really does know best how everything should be arranged!"

Inspired by: "A Malcontent Cured" in Folktales from India by A. K. Ramanujan, 1991.
Notes: You can read about the state of Kashmir in northern India at Wikipedia. This story is also well known in the Middle East, and thanks to La Fontaine, it has also become part of the fable tradition in Europe as well.

pxhere photo

The Tiger's Son

A tiger found an abandoned baby and raised him.

When he was grown, he said, "Father, I need a wife."

The tiger caught a woman for him but nibbled her ear.

"No!" he protested. "I want a whole woman!"

The tiger couldn't help himself: he nibbled every woman he found.

Finally, he succeeded: he brought home a woman untouched.

As she prepared the wedding feast, however, she nicked her finger.

Smelling blood, the tiger pounced, but the man stabbed and killed him.

Then he took his bride back home.

"You're alive!" shouted her happy parents, and the whole village celebrated.

Inspired by: "The Tiger's Adopted Son" in Folktales from India by A. K. Ramanujan, 1991.
Notes: You can read about the Didayi people of Odisha in eastern India at Wikipedia.

freerange photos

The Tiger and the Lamb

A tiger and a lamb drank from the same stream; the tiger upstream, the lamb downstream.

"Why are you muddying my water?" shouted the tiger.

"That couldn't be me," explained the lamb. "I'm downstream."

"And you did it yesterday too!"

"But I wasn't here yesterday," the lamb replied.

"Then it must have been your mother."

"My mother's dead."

"Your father then!"

"I don't know my father."

"So your grandfather's the guilty one!" yelled the exasperated tiger. "And now I'm going to eat you as punishment."

Then the tiger seized the innocent lamb and ate him up.

That's what tigers do.

Inspired by: "If It Isn't You, It Must Be Your Father" in Folktales from India by A. K. Ramanujan 1991.
Notes: Ramanujan reports hearing this story told to him in Kannada when he was a child. You can read about the Kannada language spoken in Karnataka and elsewhere in southern India at Wikipedia. This is an ancient story, found both in the ancient Buddhist jatakas (panther and goat) and also in the Aesop's fables of Greece and Rome (wolf and lamb).

tiger in water

The Mouse and the Magician

There was a mouse who lived in the house of a magician.

"Help me, magician!" said the mouse. "I'm tired of being a mouse. I want to be a cat instead!"

"A cat....?" muttered the magician, rummaging in his magic books. "I don't have a spell to turn you into a cat. Would you like to be a dog?"

The mouse shook his head no.

"A human?"

No.

"A tiger?"

"Oh yes!" squeaked the mouse. "Turn me into a tiger."

So the magician turned the mouse into a tiger.

"Thank you!" roared the tiger, and then he ate the magician.

Inspired by: "With a Wave of the Wand" in A Twist in the Tale by Aditi De, 2005.
Notes: You can read about the state of Maharashtra in western India at Wikipedia. Aditi De's version is more elaborate: after the mouse becomes a tiger, the villagers mock him for having the heart of a mouse; thinking the magician betrayed his secret, the tiger-mouse goes to confront him, and the magician turns him back into a mouse. My story is quite different, but it is the only way I could fit it into 100 words. Compare the story of the brahmins and the tiger bones.

ucumari photography at Flickr

The Old Man and His Sons

An old man was living in poverty: his clothes in tatters, no food to eat.

The man's sons did nothing to help him.

Then a friendly merchant brought him three large, heavy sacks. "Show these to your sons," the merchant said, "but don't open them."

"An investment has brought unexpected returns," the man told his sons. "I wonder who'll inherit all this wealth."

So the sons vied for his favor, bringing him fine food, expensive clothing, every possible luxury.

The old man enjoyed his final years.

Then, when he died, his sons tore the sacks open.

They found only stones.

Inspired by: "The Bag of Fortune" in A Twist in the Tale by Aditi De, 2005.
Notes: You can read about the state of Kashmir in northern India at Wikipedia. Aditi De's version is more elaborate: the story starts with the father revealing the terms of his will to his sons, which is when they start to neglect him.

Kashmiri man

Building the First House

Long ago, people got wet in the rain because they didn't know how to build houses.

"The animals are wise," the people said. "Let's ask them how to build houses."

"You'll need posts," Elephant told them. "Big and strong like my legs."

"And you'll need poles," added Snake. "Long and straight, just like me!"

Buffalo, mourning her husband, showed them his skeleton. "Your house must fit together like these bones."

Then Fish said, "Make layers of leaves like our scales. They will keep you dry."

So that is how people learned to build houses and stay dry in the rain.

Inspired by: "How the First House Was Built" in A Twist in the Tale by Aditi De, 2005.
Notes: The Singphos are a people who live in what is now the border of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh; they also live in Myanmar and in China. Find out more at Wikipedia.

Singpho people of India