Tag Archives: talking animals

Momotaro

AGE: 20   

DATE OF PERFORMANCE: 04/07/2025

LANGUAGE: English 

NATIONALITY: American 

OCCUPATION: Student 

PRIMARY LANGUAGE: English 

RESIDENCE: Cerritos, CA  

Interviewer: Are there any distinct folktales or myths that you grew up hearing about?

NB: “Tooth fairy…[continues to think]…Oh! Momotaro.”

Interviewer: Who is that? Could you tell me that story?

NB: “The little peach boy. I think it’s something like there were old grandparents who always wanted a kid but couldn’t have one. But one day they were blessed with a peach that came down the river stream who ended up being a baby boy so they ended up raising him.”

Interviewer: When did you hear this story?

NB: “I think when I was 6 or 7 years old.”

Interviewer: What do you think the tale is about? Any life lessons or moral stories you think it’s trying to accomplish?

NB: “Mmmm I’m not really sure. [thinks about it for a little] I think it’s about life blessings maybe?”

PERSONAL INTERPRETATION:

Again, this was yet another tale that I had never heard of, so I went online to do some light digging. This tale is about a hero named (quite literally, this is the translation) Peach Boy. This hero can be found in many Japanese tales, movies, books, etc., you name it. According to my basic online sources, he was the local hero of the Okayama Prefecture. In the version of the tale I found online, he was born from a giant peach found floating down a river by an old, childless woman. As he grew older, he became significantly stronger and eventually left his parents behind to fight demons alongside his friends a talking dog, monkey, and pheasant. In the version of the tale NB told me, there was no mention of his fighting demons, simply just that he was a blessing from the gods in the form of a peach. This tale creates many questions for me, such as: why was he born from a peach? What is the significance of the peach? Why did he go off to fight demons? It also just reminds me of more Asian folktales I have heard of that have really interesting or weird characters (often involving fruit or talking animals of some kind, actually) and that the moral of the story isn’t really quite evident. Sometimes stories are just told for entertainment purposes. Does that still count as a part of folklore if it doesn’t have any deeper meaning behind it?

The Oxen and The Tiger

Context: J is a 21 year old Filipino American college student who grew up in California, who was regularly visited by her Grandparents who shared stories from their childhood. The piece was collected during a discord audio call. 

Intv: “Hey! I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind telling me the story that your grandmother told you about.”

J: “ Yeah sure! So There’s a story my grandma used to tell, she heard while growing up in cambodia! Just a little outside of the capital of Phnom penh. It’s about the origin of tiger stripes and why ox have no upper front teeth.”

Intv: “Okay sounds great! I’d love to hear it!”

J: “So basically this tiger was stalking these oxen getting beaten around by a man while working the farm fields, full of curiosity, the tiger approached the oxen after the man walks away and asks “my ox brethren, why do you let the weak man beat away at you and make you work for him when you could easily kick him down and be free like me?” and the ox replies “it’s because the man has intelligence that makes us listen to him” the tiger then asks, “what is intelligence?” and the ox replies ‘go ask him yourself’ which the tiger does but approaches the human arrogantly because the tiger thinks he is the most powerful being in the world and demands that the human man show the tiger what intelligence was or the tiger would maul the human. the human responds ‘ah, i left my intelligence at home so i would have to go retrieve it but i don’t trust you around my livestock’ and while the tiger insisted that he’d wait for the man, they came to an agreement where the man would tie up the tiger to prevent him from potentially attacking his oxen. However, after tying the tiger very tightly to a tree the human placed a bunch of leaves and branches on the tiger and lit him on fire. The oxen began to laugh at the tiger while pointing at him with their front legs and they laughed so hard that they fell on their front two teeth and broke them and they never grew back. while the tiger screamed in agony until the rope tying him to the tree burned away and he fled back into the forest, with the black stripes being his burned flesh for forever”

Analysis: As a first time listener to this story the main thing that stands out to me is the human animal relations. Humans are depicted at the top of the food chain, not because of power but because of our wit. The unnamed human in this story even acts like a common trickster character, by pretending intelligence is a physical object. Also through the oxen we see another aspect of human capability and intelligence, through just how the oxen says “intelligence makes us listen to him.”

How The Bulbul Became King Of The Birds

Nationality: American (of Indian heritage)
Age: 12 (parent consent given)
Occupation: Student
Residence: Cupertino, California
Performance Date: 3/21/2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Spanish, Polish

Item:

“Once, there was a hornbill. He was the king of the birds, but he was mean and horrible, so they all hated him. But because he was really strong, no one could say anything to him, much less do anything about his tyranny. One day, however, the wise old owl had had enough of the hornbill’s bad attitude and cruelty, so he devised a plan to dethrone him and make the kind, gentle bulbul the queen of the birds instead. He called a meeting of all the birds except the tyrant King Hornbill, and shared his scheme – They would host a contest of strength, in which the bulbul and the hornbill would each have to stand on a branch forcefully, or peck it in some other versions, until it came crashing down. But what the hornbill wouldn’t know was that the, um, the woodpecker would have pecked away at the bulbul’s branch beforehand, weakening it already. Whoever succeeded in breaking their branch was the winner and the ruler of the the birds. And so, they carried it out, and took the proposition to the hornbill, who, being proud of his strength, arrogantly accepted the challenge without a second thought. He was unaware of the scheming that had already happened, obviously. So then the, uh, right, the bulbul and the hornbill stood on their respective branches. Before the hornbill’s horrified eyes, the bulbul’s branch came apart from the tree in less than ten seconds with a loud crack. Because he had accepted the challenge already, there was nothing he could do to go back on his word. So, disgraced and defeated, he left. And that’s how the awesome bulbul became the queen of birds.”

Context:

The informant related the context of his story to me: “It was actually pretty cool – I’d read both the versions of the story, one, as you know, in Amar Chitra Katha comics, and the other in a book of Indian folktales and legends. But I liked the one with the standing more than the one with the pecking, because it seemed more embarrassing for the hornbill, and so that’s the one I decided to tell you.”

Analysis:

This tale has the makings of a classic fable. Not only are there talking animals, but there is also a theme that is explored and built up to at the end of the story, which is demonstrated throughout the events that occur during the story. When examined closely, it reveals a moral of the triumph over adversity – adversity in this case being the tyrannical hornbill – employing cleverness and strength in numbers. The bulbul, the owl, and the woodpecker, all relatively small birds when compared to the large and imposing hornbill, team up together to take down their cruel king and succeed in doing so through devising a smart plan, proving that might isn’t always right, and brain is stronger than brawn.
*Citation: Kadam, Dilip. Amar Chitra Katha Special Edition – Panchatantra Tales. Mumbai: ACK Media, n.d. Comic Book.