Philippines | Cole: The Man with the Cocoanuts (Tinguian)

SurLaLune offers over 40 eBooks, including fairy tale and folklore anthologies, critical texts, poetry and fiction. A master list is available to the right. The index below is divided by subject matter and region with fiction and poetry at the bottom.




The Man with the Cocoanuts (Tinguian)

ONE day a man who had been to gather his cocoanuts loaded his horse heavily with the fruit. On the way home he met a boy whom he asked how long it would take to reach the house.

"If you go slowly," said the boy, looking at the load on the horse, "you will arrive very soon; but if you go fast, it will take you all day."

The man could not believe this strange speech, so he hurried his horse. But the cocoanuts fell off and he had to stop to pick them up. Then he hurried his horse all the more to make up for lost time, but the cocoanuts fell off again. Many times he did this, and it was night when he reached home. [90]

Cole, Mabel Cook. Philippine Folk TalesLondon: Curtis Brown, 1916. 
Amazon.com: Buy the book in paperback.

Notes

[90] Here we have a proverbial tale, one in which the Tinguian expresses the idea, "Haste makes waste."
Return to place in story.


 








Back to Top