Tag Archives: greed

Tale of Two Brothers – Tale

Context:

G is a Korean American freshman studying Computer Science at USC. She has heard this story from her mother, who was born and raised in Korea but moved to Hawaii. That’s where G lived before she came to USC. According to G, her mom has told her this story countless times, and it is a very popular and well-known story.

Text:

There were two brothers, Heungbu and Nolbu, and they were both from a rich family. Nolbu is the older brother, he’s very greedy. The younger brother is Heungbu and he’s very kind. When their father died and it was time to split the fortune he left behind, the older brother takes everything. But, Heungbu is nice, so he doesn’t fight back or anything. He just accepts it.

There was a baby bird, a swallow. There was a snake trying to eat the swallow. Heungbu chased the snake away, saving the swallow. The baby bird had a broken leg, and Heungbu treated it for him. Three days later, the swallow got better, left, and came back with pumpkin seeds. So, Heungbu plants it in his backyard and when it was time to harvest, the pumpkin was full of treasure and gold.

The rumor spread that Heungbu became wealthy. His brother, the greedy one, asks him how he got so wealthy. Heungbu tells his brother. When Nolbu sees a swallow, he purposefully breaks the swallow’s leg and then heals it. The swallow comes back with pumpkin see, and when it was time to harvest, goblins came out of the pumpkin beating up his children and taking his fortune away.

Analysis:

This tale outlines two very stark characters in close contrast to showcase a logical sequence of events that follow their lives. Tales travel along the supernatural and realistically impossible, operating on events and logic that do not apply in the real world. There is no pumpkin seed in the world that can summon treasure and gold, or goblins (goblins do not exist or been questioned to exist like a yeti would be in a legend). There is no animal (real world entity) that is magical enough to differentiate magical pumpkin seeds, like that swallow. The objects of the folktale on which the plot occurs and the characters are propelled are illogical and extraordinary, an irrefutable kind of “not real” that occurs in a world that is not our own. However, though the events and plot devices themselves are not real or rational, what is logical is the actions of the characters caused by the devices. According to Oring, a “tale’s climax is the logical result of an episodic sequence.” Heungbu’s kindness and benevolence is met with Nolbu’s greed and malevolence, earning both of them respective consequences based on the caliber of morality their distinctive personalities the real world’s principles hold them in. These characters are unchanging and idle to exaggerate those social noems. It is accepted that kindness earns respect and good fortune, and as Korean culture is mostly dictated by Confucian values, Heungbu’s loyalty to his family in spite of his brother’s mistakes makes him a template of good character for Korean culture. Nolbu is the opposite; insensitive to family, uncooperative, and endlessly greedy, hence a moral villain for his Korean audience. This tale engineers Korean culture values into a supernatural order of events that follow a logical reasoning, so that the resolution is not only predictable for the audience but inevitable and therefore applicable in metaphor in real life.

“The Honest Woodsman”: A folk tale

Text

My informant was particularly familiar with storytelling. They had this story prepared both in terms of content as well as delivery. Throughout the telling, they made gestures and motions to convey their thoughts.

“One sunny day, there was a woodsman. This woodsman was cutting down trees and collecting lumber so he could sell it to the people in his village. He was usually respected as a really honest man, and a really hardworking man. He was in this forest chopping down wood as per usual until he hit a particularly hard piece of wood. Out of shock, his hands let go and his axe flew back behind him into a river.”

The god Hermes saw this as the woodsman searched the river for his axe. Wanting to mess around for a little bit, Hermes decided to appear to him and say ‘Woodsman, I think I may have found your axe.’ He then showed the woodsman an axe made of solid gold. And Hermes said to him ‘Is this your axe?’ The woodsman said ‘No, that is not my axe.’ Hermes said ‘Oh, this must be a different axe’ and set it aside. Then he pulled out a silver axe, ‘Woodsman, is this your axe?’ And the woodsman said ‘No, that is not my axe.’ Hermes set that one to the side and showed him another one. ‘Is this your axe?’ He holds out a very plain, very battered axe with a wooden handle and iron tip. The woodsman says ‘Yes! That is my axe! I built it myself!’ Hermes, very impressed by his honestly, gave the woodsman all three axes for being such an honest person.”

The woodsman return to his village and shared the news. A competitor of the woodsman, a man who did not work so hard and was not known for being trustworthy, saw this and grew very jealous. The next day, this competitor went to a similar part of the woods and started cutting down trees behind pretending to drop his axe in the river behind him. So Hermes, seeing this again, appears and says ‘Hello, it seems you’ve lost your axe.’ The competitor said ‘Ah yes, I lost my axe! Do you, by any chance, know where it is?’ Hermes pulls out a golden axe and offers it to the competing woodsman. He asks, ‘Is this your axe?’ to which the competitor said ‘Yes, of course it is!'”

Hermes makes the golden axe disappear and actually takes the man’s own axe. The competitor said ‘That’s my own axe! I built it with my own hands and I use it for my livelihood. Hermes responded ‘A man who cannot be honest probably doesn’t make an honest living and should not make one at all.’ With that, Hermes leaves.”

The informant smiled. “The end.”

Context

RELATIONSHIP –
“I don’t know, it’s the story that’s stuck with me the most because when I was younger, I liked to read a lot of tales and fables. This is one that stuck out to me.”

WHERE THEY HEARD IT –
“I had a book of Aesop’s Fables, so it was probably in that book,” they said, a bit unsure. “But seeing as all stories are the same and storytelling is very repetitive in its behavior, I probably heard it– or something like it– in a church setting since I was raised in Catholicism. The first time I heard the story the way I heard it was probably in that book.”

INTERPRETATION –
“It’s a pretty simple story– it’s a story of ‘tell the truth and you’ll get good things out of it.’ It’s mainly giving a moral, but because of the Greeks, it’s probably also used as a way of saying ‘The Gods giveth, the Gods taketh away.'”

Analysis

“The Honest Woodsman”/”The Honest Woodcutter” story is one that I’ve come across in other cultures– specifically Japanese. I thought it was particularly interesting that the version I heard never had a competing woodsman who had an example made of them. In this version, I think it’s not only a lesson on being honest, but also a lesson on being a good person in general. This version makes sure to describe the competing woodsman as being not-hardworking, jealous, and greedy along with being dishonest. It’s this combination of negative traits that suggests there should be a punishment given to him as a moment of comeuppance.

The Fisherman and the Golden Fish

It’s about a fisherman, and his wife that are living very humbly by the ocean. And uh … one day the fisherman goes down to the ocean and uh .. he uh .. casts his hook into the ocean and he catches a golden fish. And this fish, when it’s caught by the fisherman says, “Listen, if you let me go I’ll give you anything you want”. This is a Russian folktale. And the fisherman says, “Well, let me consult with my wife”. And so what he does is he goes back, and uh … he asks his wife what she would want, and she says she really wants a trough. You know what a trough is, it’s like a vessel almost. It’s a vessel made out of wood. A very humble request. And the fisherman says to the fish, “All we want is a trough. My wife just wants a trough to put stuff in, maybe flour or vegetables or something”. And the fish says, “No problem, no problem”. And so the fisherman goes back home and there’s this beautiful brand new trough uhh … in front of his wife. Now this repeats, because the fisherman, this is all folktale, he catches that fish again at another date down the line. And the fish says, “You know, listen, please let me go. Whatever you want I will provide”. And so he consults with his wife again and the wife says, “Hey, you know this is a big opportunity, I like, I like a new house. You know this hovel we’re living in doesn’t do it”. This progresses, the fisherman keeps going back and it goes from the trough, to a new house, and then it translates or devolves into something even bigger than a new house like a new cow or something like that. And he keeps going back to the fish, and he catches it, and finally the wife says, “Hey listen, I would like to be, … I think our wish should be that I should be the Queen of Russia”. They call it Tsaritsa. And the fish says …, the uhh fisherman goes back after he catches the fish, and sure enough the fish is tired of all these requests. There are many of them, they keep escalating. And uh he says uh .. “Just go back home, and your wife will get what she deserves”. And so he goes back and she’s in the same miserable state … as the uh inception of the story, because she had overextended her requests.

Background: This informant’s family is from Russia and he grew up in the US. He eventually taught Russian at a university. This piece is an example he has come across after studying Russian folk belief.

Interpretation: This story shows both the value in compassion, and that you should not be greedy. The fisherman is initially rewarded for showing kindness, it is only when he abuses this ability to get rewarded does he have all his rewards taken away. It also might say something about the right to the crown as that is the wish that breaks the camel’s back as it were. Basically the story warns against taking advantage of others and doing good out of greed instead out of kindness.

Indian Tale – The Greedy Monkeys

Main Piece

Informant: “There’s a story of two greedy monkeys who find a piece of roti, basically an Indian tortilla, in the forest and they are fighting over who is going to break it in half because they each think the other will give himself the bigger piece. A snake comes by and hears them fighting and devises a plan. He offers to break it for them. He does and offers them the two halves, but each monkey thinks one piece is bigger, because the snake made one purposely bigger, so the snake takes a bite out of the bigger one, now making the other half bigger and offers it back up to them. Same situation keeps happening until the roti is finished and the snake just slithers away and the monkeys are left with nothing. Basically it’s a story about how if you’re greedy you’ll end up with nothing.”

Background

My informant is a practicing lawyer in Los Angeles, California. She is of Indian descent, and her knowledge of Indian folklore comes from her father. 

Context

Informant: “I can’t remember how old I was when I heard this but I was a kid. Usually stories like this are told to kids to teach them a lesson and teach them not to be greedy.”

My Thoughts

I had not heard of this story before, but I did know that greed is a widely recognized sin in Indian cultures. According to Hindupedia (cited below), greed causes fights amongst family members, a loss of wealth, and a loss of close friends. In Indian cultures, greed is also the driving force behind most crimes, whether it is theft or cheating. In an Indian story titled “How a Greedy Miser became a great Saint,” a young man refuses to spend money on finding cures for his father’s sickness, which results in his father’s death. By the end of the story, the young man acknowledges his greed and becomes charitable.

It is interesting to note that the two characters that suffered in the hands of the snake are monkeys. Monkeys are a very important part of Indian culture. Monkeys are said to be the living avatars of the god of power, Hanuman, who was half-man and half-monkey. The snake is vilified as he is deceiving a respected deity. 

Source:

Hindupedia. “Ideals and Values/Lobha (Greed) The Third Inner Enemy.” Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia, www.hindupedia.com/en/Ideals_and_Values/Lobha_(Greed)_The_Third_Inner_Enemy#We_do_wrong_things. Accessed 24 Apr. 2021.

Ethiopian Story – The Two Neighbors

Main Piece

Once, there were two poor neighbors. Neither could afford a donkey, which they both desperately needed, to take their produce to the market. They compromised and decided to each pay half of the cost of a donkey. One neighbor took the donkey one week, and the other the next. Suddenly, one of the neighbor’s father passed away and left him money, animals, and land. This neighbor became rich. The rich neighbor needed to feed his animals. 

He said to the poor man, “let us kill the donkey and divide him equally between us.

The poor man refused, saying, “Either give me money for my half and take the whole donkey, or let us keep sharing it as we did before. I still need the donkey to carry my produce to the market.”

The rich man and the poor man argued some more, and went to an ignorant judge to settle their dispute. 

The ignorant judge says, “Slaughter the donkey and give the rich man his half.”

So the donkey was slaughtered, and the poor man no longer could take his produce into the marketplace. 

One day, the rich man decided to burn his hut. 

The poor man pleaded, “Don’t burn it. My hut is next door. You will burn mine too!” 

But the rich man didn’t listen. He insisted that it was his house, and he could do whatever he wanted with it. So he burned his hut, and a gust of wind took the flames to the poor man’s hut and burned it as well. 

The two went back to the ignorant judge and the poor man asked, “If he burned down my hut, why can’t he pay me?” 

The ignorant judge answered, “The rich man did not mean to burn down your house. The gust of wind burned down your house, so it is not his fault.”

Now the poor man was left without a donkey and without a hut. Every day, after farming his chickpeas in his field, he slept underneath a tree. Years passed, and the rich man had children. One day, the rich man’s children sneaked into the poor man’s field and ate his chickpeas. The poor man was now left without a harvest. They both went to the ignorant judge once more.

“His children ate my chickpeas,” said the poor man, “and I want them back.”

The rich man said, “Alright, I will pay you for the chickpeas.”

The poor man replied, “No. I want my chickpeas. I shall tear their stomachs and get my chickpeas.”

The rich man was terrified. “Please! Let me pay you for them!”

The ignorant judge said, “If they are his chickpeas, then he shall tear their stomachs and claim them.”

The rich man pleaded some more, but the poor man and the judge would not change their minds. The rich man convinced the poor man to go see the elders to settle their dispute. 

The elders said, “If you want him to not kill your children, you must give him half of your land, money, and animals.” The rich man agreed.

So, the poor man got half of the rich man’s property, and the two never quarreled again. 

Background

My informant was born and raised in Ethiopia. He emphasized how important it is to stay humble and charitable in Ethiopia no matter your socioeconomic status.

Context

This tale is told in a casual setting. This tale can also be told in a relevant scenario to remind the listener that money doesn’t always make one a good person.

My Thoughts

This tale reminds me of many Ethiopian proverbs, which mostly pertain to wealth and poverty. In Ethiopian proverbs, the rich are associated with evil and ignorance, while poor people are considered dignified and “good” people. This tale reinforces the idea that it is better to be poor and dignified than rich and contemptible. In the end, the poor man and the wealthy man become equals and live happily. This story communicates the idea that it is better for everyone to have moderate wealth than for select members of society to hold most of the wealth. An article by Tok Thompson titled “Getting Ahead in Ethiopia: Amharic Proverbs About Wealth” explains the general disdain towards wealthy people in Ethiopian proverbs (cited below). 

Moreover, the judge is a recurring character in Ethiopian stories. He is often described as simple-minded, ignorant, and unfair. Since this tale is a criticism of social classes, one can infer that the judge represents society’s powerful and wealthy individuals. This is another way this tale falls in line with traditional Ehtiopian proverbs. The wealthy, or in this case, the judge, are depicted as bad people with no dignity. The character of the judge in these tales perfectly represents the wealthy social class.

Source:

Thompson, Tok. “Proverbium. Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship.” Arbitrium, vol. 26, no. 3, 2009, pp. 367-386, Accessed 1 Apr. 2021.