Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/137

 MALAGASY FOLK-TALES.

By the Rev. James Sibree, Junior.

THE preceding specimens of the Folk-Tales of the Malagasy have been all given in full, and probably are sufficient to show the general character of these productions. We shall only add two or three more to these examples, and, in order to economise space, shall give them in outline, as all the tales are more or less wordy and full of repetitions which add nothing to the main purport of the story.

The following tale, from the name of the hero, may be called Isìlakòlona, although it is not so named in Mr. Dahle's collection. It will be seen that in some points it resembles the story of Itrìmòbe and Rafàra already given.

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This is a story in which the hero is the youngest of four sons, and is only half a man, one side of him being of wood. The other sons propose to their father that this strange brother of theirs should be cast off and disinherited, to which he agreed; but the mother would not consent to be parted from her child, and said that he must divorce her if he persisted in his intentions. This the father does; and the youngest son goes away with his mother, and keeps a number of dogs.

Some time afterwards the three sons propose to the father that they should perform some difficult feat, and ask him what they should do. He replies that they had better do what no one else had been able to accomplish, viz. bring to him a white guinea-fowl, some red bees (or wasps), a bull named Ilàisambìlo, and three mysterious creatures named Iampélamànanòho. They agree to this, thinking they will easily