The Devil And The Guachinango

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Title:     The Devil And The Guachinango
Author: Dean S. Fansler [More Titles by Fansler]

Narrated by José Laki of Guagua, Pampanga. He got the story from his uncle, who heard it from an old Pampango story-teller.

There once lived in a suburb of a town a very religious old widow who had a beautiful daughter, Piriang by name. Young men from different parts of the town came to court Piriang, and the mother always preferred the rich to the poor. Whenever Piriang's friends told her that the man whom she rejected would have been a good match for her, she always answered that she would rather have a devil for a husband than such a man.

One day a devil heard Piriang giving this answer to one of her friends. Thus encouraged, he disguised himself as a young man of noble blood, and went to Piriang's house to offer her his love. The mother and daughter received this stranger with great civility, for he appeared to them to be the son of a nobleman. In the richness of his dress he was unexcelled by his rivals. After he had been going to Piriang's house for a few weeks, the old widow told him one day to come prepared to be married on the following Tuesday. On the Sunday before the wedding-day he had a long conversation with Piriang. He calmly asked her to take off the cross that she had about her neck, for it made her look ugly, he said. She refused to do so, however, because she had worn this cross ever since she was a child. After he had departed, Piriang told her mother what he had asked her to do.

The next day the mother went to the church. She told the priest that Piriang's bridegroom had ordered her to take off her cross from her neck. The priest said that that man was a devil; for no man, as a son of God, would say that a cross made the one who wore it look ugly. The priest gave the mother a small image of the Virgin Mary. He instructed her to show the image to the bridegroom. If when he beheld it he turned his back on her as she was holding it, she was to tie him around the neck with her cintas. [73] Then she was to put him in a large jar, and bury him at least twenty-one feet under the ground.

The mother went home very much distressed because she had allowed her daughter to become engaged to a devil. She told Piriang not to talk with her bridegroom, because she feared that he was a devil. That night he came with his friend dressed like him. The mother was very gracious to them. They talked about the wedding. When the old woman held up the image of the Virgin Mary, the two men turned their backs on her. She immediately wound her cintas around the neck of her daughter's bridegroom, and Piriang came in with the dried tail of a sting-ray in her right hand. She whipped him with this as hard as she could. [74] Then the two together forced him to get into a large jar. After warning him not to come back to earth again, the old woman covered the jar with a piece of cloth wet with holy water. The other devil suddenly disappeared.

The next morning a guachinango [75] happened to pass by the house of the old woman. She called him in, showed him the jar, and told him to bury it at least twenty-one feet deep. When he asked how much she would pay him, she promised to give him ten pesos. He agreed: so, putting the jar on his right shoulder, he set out. When he reached a quiet place, he heard whispers behind him. He stopped and looked around, but could see nothing. Then he put the jar on the ground to rest a few minutes. Now he discovered that the whispers were coming from inside the jar. He was very much surprised.

"What are you?" asked the guachinango. "Are you a man, or a devil?"

"I am a devil, my friend," answered the voice. "The old woman forced me to go into this jar. Be kind to me, my friend, and liberate me!"

"I shall obey the old woman in order to get my pay," said the guachinango. "I will bury you even deeper than twenty-one feet."

"If you will bury me just three feet deep," said the devil, "I will give you a large sum of money."

"I will bury you just one and a half feet deep, if you can give me much money," said the guachinango.

"I will give you five hundred pesos," said the devil. "Dig the ground near the stump of that mabolo-tree. There you will find the money in a dirty black purse."

After the guachinango had buried the devil, he went to the mabolo-tree and took the money. Then he went to the nearest village and played casino. As soon as he lost all his money, he returned to the devil. "I have lost all the money you gave me," he said. "I will now bury you twenty-one feet deep."

"No, do not bury me so deep as that, my friend!" said the devil calmly. "I can give you twice as much money as I gave you before. You will find it in the same place that you found the other."

The guachinango took the money and went to the village again to gamble. Again he lost. He returned to the devil, and asked him angrily why he always lost the money he gave him. "I don't know," answered the devil. "I have given you fifteen hundred pesos, but you haven't even a cent now. You ought to set me free at once."

"Aha! I won't let you go," said the guachinango. "I will bury you thirty-nine feet now."

"I have a plan in mind," said the devil, "which will benefit you extremely; but before I explain my plan, let me ask you if you would like to marry the daughter of the king."

"I have a great desire to be king some day," said the guachinango; "but how can you make me the husband of a princess, when you are only a devil, and I am nothing but a poor guachinango?"

"As soon as you set me free," said the devil, "I will enter the mouth of the princess and go into her brains. Then I will give her a very painful headache which no physician can cure. The king will make an announcement saying that he who can cure his daughter of her disease shall marry her. When you hear this announcement, go to the palace at once, and offer your services to the king. As soon as you reach the princess, tell me that you have come, and I will leave her immediately. The princess will then recover her former health, and you will be married to her. Do not fail to go to the palace, for I am determined to reward you for your kindness to me."

After the guachinango had liberated the devil, he immediately set out for the city. He had not been there three days when he met a group of soldiers crying that "he who could cure the princess should have her to wife." The guachinango stopped the soldiers, and said that he could cure the princess. They took him before the king, where a written agreement was made. If he could not cure the princess in three days, he should lose his life; but if he cured her by the end of the third day, he should marry her. The guachinango was then conducted to the room of the princess. When he approached her, he said to the devil that he had come. "You must leave the princess now; for, if you don't, I shall be executed." But the devil refused to leave, because he wanted to get revenge. He further told the guachinango that he wanted him to die, for then his soul would go to hell.

The guachinango became more and more hopeless. On the morning of the third day he thought of a good plan to get rid of his enemy. He asked the king to order all the bells of the neighboring churches to be tolled, while every one in the palace was to cry out loud, "Here she comes!" While all this noise was going on, the guachinango approached the princess, and told the devil that the old woman was coming with her cintas. When the devil heard this, he was terribly frightened, and left the princess and disappeared. The next day the guachinango was married to the princess.

 

Notes.

From the testimony of the narrator, this capital story appears to have been known in Pampanga for some time. The incident of the demon entering the body of the princess, and then leaving at the request of one who has befriended him, occurs in a Tagalog story also, which I will give for the purpose of comparison. While the story is more of a fairy-tale than a Märchen proper, it appears to be a variant of our No. 24. Significant differences between the two will be noted, however. The Tagalog story was collected and written down for me by Manuel Reyes, a native of Manila. It runs as follows:

 

Mabait and the Duende.

Menguita, a king of Cebu, had two slaves,--Mabait and Masama. Mabait was honest and industrious, while Masama was envious and lazy. Mabait did nearly all of the hard work in the palace, so he was admired very much by the king. Masama, who was addicted to gambling, envied Mabait.

One night, while Mabait was asleep, a duende [76] awakened him, and said, "I have seen how you labor here patiently and honestly. I want to be your friend."

Mabait was amazed and frightened. He looked at the duende carefully, and saw that it resembled a very small man with long hair and a white beard. It was about a foot high. It had on a red shirt, a pair of green trousers, a golden cap, and a pair of black shoes. At last Mabait answered in a trembling voice, "I don't want to be a friend of an evil spirit."

"I am not evil, I am a duende."

"I don't know what duendes are, so I don't want to be your friend."

"Duendes are wealthy and powerful spirits. They can perform magic. If you are the friend of one of them, you will be a most fortunate man."

"How did you come into the world?" said Mabait.

"Listen! When Lucifer was an angel, a contest in creating animals arose between him and God. He and his followers were defeated and thrown into hell. Many angels in that contest belonged neither to God's side not to Lucifer's. They were dropped on the earth. Those that fell in the forests became tigbalangs, ikis, and mananangals; [77] those in the seas became mermaids and mermen; and those in the cities became duendes."

"Ah, yes! I know now what duendes are."

"Now let our friendship last forever," said the duende. "I am ready at any time to help you in your undertakings."

From that time on Mabait and the duende were good friends. The duende gave Mabait two or three isabels [78] every day, and by the end of the month he had saved much money. He bought a fine hat and a pair of wooden shoes.

Masama wondered how Mabait, who was very poor, could buy so many things. At last he asked, "Where do you get money? Do you steal it?"

"No, my friend gives it to me."

"Who is your friend?"

"A duende."

Masama, in great envy, went to the king, and said, "Master, Mabait, your favorite slave, has a friend. This friend is a duende, which will be injurious to us if you let it live here. As Mabait said, it will be the means of his acquiring all of your wealth and taking your daughter for his wife."

The king, in great rage, summoned Mabait, and punished him severely by beating his palms with a piece of leather. Then he ordered his servants to find the duende and kill it. The duende hid in a small jar. Masama saw it, and covered the mouth of the jar with a saint's dress. The duende was afraid of the dress, and dared not come out. "Open the jar, and I will give you ten isabels," said the little man.

"Give me the money first."

After Masama received the money, he went away to the cockpit without opening the jar. On his way there he lost his money. He went back to the duende, and said, "Friend, give me ten isabels more, and I will open the jar."

"I know that you will cheat me," answered the duende. "Just let me come out of the jar, and I promise that you shall have the princess here for your wife."

"What! Will the princess be my wife?"

"Yes."

"How can you make her love me?"

"I will enter the princess's abdomen. I will talk, laugh, and do everything to make her afraid. I will not leave her for anybody but you."

"Good, good!" Masama opened the jar, and the duende, flew a way to the princess's tower.

Only a few weeks after that time a proclamation of the king was read in public. It was as follows: "The princess, my daughter, has something in her abdomen. It speaks and laughs. No one knows what it is, and no one can force it to come out. Whoever can cure my daughter shall be my heir and son-in-law; but he who tries and fails shall lose his head."

When Masama heard this, he said to Mabait, "Why don't you cure the princess? You are the only one who can cure her."

"Don't flatter me!" answered Mabait.

"I'm not flattering you. It is the duende, your friend, who is in her abdomen, and no one can persuade it to come out but you. So go now, for fortune is waiting for you."

Mabait was at last persuaded, and so he departed. Before going to the king, he first went to a church, and there he prayed Bathala that he might be successful in his undertakings. When Mabait was gone, Masama said to himself, "It is not fortune, but it is death, that is waiting for him. When he is dead, I shall not have anybody to envy."

After sitting for about a half-hour, Masama also set out for the princess's tower, but he reached the palace before Mabait. There he told the king that he could cure his daughter. He was conducted into the princess's room. He touched her abdomen, and said, "Who are you?"

"I am the duende."

"Why are you there?"

"Because I want to be here."

"Go away!"

"No, I won't."

"Don't you know me?"

"Yes, I know you. You are Masama, who cheated me once. Give your head to the king." So the executioner cut Masama's head off.

Then Mabait came, and told the king that he could cure the princess. After he was given permission to try, he said to the duende, "Who are you?"

"I am the duende, your friend."

"Will you please come out of the princess's abdomen?"

"Yes, I will, for the sake of our friendship."

Mabait was married to the princess, was crowned king, and lived happily with his friend the duende.

Before attempting to decide anything concerning the provenience of these two tales, we shall first examine versions of the story from other parts of the world. The nearest European analogue that I am familiar with is an Andalusian story printed by Caballero in 1866 (Ingram, 107, "The Demon's Mother-in-Law"). An outline of the chief elements of this tale follows:--

Mother Holofernes, while very neat and industrious, was a terrible termagant and shrew. Her daughter Panfila, on the contrary, was so lazy and thoughtless, that once, when the old woman burnt herself badly because her daughter was listening to some lads singing outside, instead of helping her mother with the boiling lye for washing, the enraged Mother Holofernes shouted to her offspring, "Heaven grant that you may marry the Evil One himself!" Not long afterward a rich little man presented himself as a suitor for Panfila's hand. He was accepted by the mother, and preparations for the marriage went forward. The old woman, however, began to dislike the suitor, and, recalling her curse, suspected that he was none other than the Devil himself. Accordingly, on the night of the wedding, she bade Panfila lock all the windows and doors of the room, and then beat her husband with a branch of consecrated olive. So done. The husband tried to escape from his wife by slipping through the key-hole; but his mother-in-law anticipated this move. She caught him in a glass bottle, which she immediately sealed hermetically. Then the old lady climbed to the summit of a mountain, and there deposited the bottle in an out-of-the-way place. Ten years the imp remained there a prisoner, suffering cold, heat, hunger, thirst. One day a soldier, returning to his native town on leave, took a short cut over the mountain, and spied the bottle. When he picked it up, the imp begged to be released, and told him of all he had suffered; but the soldier made a number of conditions,--his release from the army, a four-dollar daily pension, etc.,--and finally the imp promised to enter the body of the daughter of the King of Naples. The soldier was to present himself at court as a physician, and demand any reward he wished to, in return for a cure. So done. The king accepted the services of the soldier, but stipulated that if in three days he had not cured the princess, he should be hanged. The soldier accepted the conditions; but the demon, seeing that he had his arrogant enemy's life in his hands, and bent on revenge, refused to leave the body of the princess. On the last day, however, the soldier ordered all the bells rung. On the demon's asking what all the noise was about, the soldier said, "I have ordered your mother-in-law summoned, and she has just arrived." In great terror the Devil at once quitted the princess, and the soldier was left "in victorious possession of the field."

It will be noticed that the last episode is almost identical with the ending of our story "The Devil and the Guachinango," while there is a considerable amount of divergence between the two elsewhere.

For versions collected before 1860 I am indebted to Benfey's treatment of this cycle. It is found in his "Pantschatantra," 1 : 519 ff. I take the liberty of summarizing it in this place, first, because it is the only exhaustive handling of the story I know of; and, second, because Benfey's brilliant work, while constantly referred to and quoted, has long been out of print, and has never been accessible in English.

The occasion for Benfey's dissertation on this particular tale is the relationship he sees between it and the large family of stories turning on the motive of a marvellous cure, a representative of which is "Pantschatantra," 5 : 12, "The Miraculous Cure of a Blind Man, a Humpback, and a Three-breasted Princess." [79] While the story we are discussing cannot be considered in any sense an offshoot of the Pantschatantra tale, it can scarcely be denied, says Benfey, that between the two there is a definite internal relationship, which is further manifested by the fact that in its later development the latter is actually joined to the former (p. 519).

The earliest form of our story is found in the "Cukasaptati," where it is told as the story for the 45th and 46th nights. In this version,--

A Brahman, driven away from home by the malice of his wife, is befriended by a demon who had formerly lived in the Brahman's house, but who had also fled in fear from her shrewish tongue. The demon enters the body of a princess; and the Brahman, appearing as a conjurer, forces him to leave, in accordance with their pact, and wins half a kingdom and the hand of the princess. The demon now goes to another city where he possesses the queen, an aunt of the Brahman's new father-in-law. The Brahman, whose reputation as an enchanter has become great, is summoned to cure this queen. When he arrives, the demon threatens and insults him, refusing to leave the queen because they are now quits. The Brahman, however, whispers in the woman's ear, "My wife is coming here close on my heels, I have come only to warn you;" whereupon the demon, terror-stricken, at once leaves the queen. The Brahman is highly honored.

Benfey conjectures that this story must have passed over into the Persian redaction of the "Cukasaptati" (i.e., the "Tuti-nameh"), but what changes it underwent in the transmission cannot yet be determined. The earliest European form of the tale is that found in the Turkish "Forty Vezirs" (trans. by Behrnauer, p. 277).

Here a young wood-cutter saves money to buy a rope; but his shrewish wife, thinking that he is going to spend it on a sweetheart, insists on accompanying him to his work in the mountains, so that she can keep him under her eye. In the mountains the husband decides to abandon his wife in a well. He tells her to hold a rope while he descends to fetch a treasure which he pretends is concealed at the bottom; but she is so avaricious, that she insists on being let down first. Then he drops the rope, and returns home free. A few days later, conscience-smitten, he goes back to rescue his wife, and, lowering another rope, he calls to her that he will draw her up; but he hauls a demon to the surface instead. The demon thanks the wood-cutter for rescuing him from a malicious woman "who some days ago descended, and has made my life unbearable ever since." As in the Cukasaptati story, the demon enters a princess and makes her insane, and the wood-cutter cures her and marries her. Then the demon enters another princess. The wood-cutter is summoned; he has to resort to the well-known trick to force the imp to leave this second maiden.

In the Persian form of this story, in the "1001 Days" (Prenzlau ed.), 11 : 247, is added the death-penalty in case the hero fails to perform the second cure, which consists in persuading the spirit, in the form of a snake, to unwind itself from the body of the vezir's daughter. The hero had already cured the sultan's daughter and married her.

A Serbian story (Wuk, No. 37) is closer to the "Forty Vezirs" version than is the "1001 Days." The only essential difference is that the opening of the Serbian tale is the well-known fabliau of the "Meadow that was mowed."

Here the wife falls into a pit. When the husband attempts to draw her out again, a devil appears. The devil is thankful; and, to reward the man, it enters the body of the emperor's daughter. Here the hero appears, not as an enchanter, but as a physician.

Practically identical is the story of "The Bad Wife and the Devil," in Vogl, "Slowenische Volksmärchen" (Wien, 1837).

In a Finnish version of the story (Benfey, 524-525) the hero, as in the preceding, assumes the rôle of a physician.

The husband pushes his bad wife into an abyss. When he attempts to draw her out again, another woman appears. She is the Plague. [80] Out of gratitude for her liberation from that other wicked woman, she proposes to him that they travel together through the world: she, the pest, will make people ill; he, as physician, will cure them. So done. As a result the man becomes rich. But at last he grows weary of his excessive work: so he procures a snappish dog, and puts it in a sack. The next time he is called to the side of a person made sick by the pest, he says to her, "Enter human beings no more: if you do, I will liberate from this sack the woman that tormented you in the abyss," at the same time irritating the dog so that it growls. The Plague, full of terror, begs him for God's sake not to set the woman free, and promises to reform.

It will be seen that in its method of the "sickness and the cure," this story is related to Grimm, No. 44, "Godfather Death," where Death takes the place of the Plague, and where, instead of gratitude, the motive is the godfather relationship of Death toward the hero.

This folk-tale, says Benfey (p. 525), was early put into literary form in Europe. Among others, he cites Machiavelli's excellent version in his story of "Belfagor" (early sixteenth century):--

Belfagor, a devil, is sent to earth by his master to live as a married man for ten years, to see whether certain accusations made against women by souls in hell are true or slanderous. Belfagor marries in Florence; but his imperious wife causes him so much bad fortune, that he is compelled to flee from his creditors. A peasant conceals him, and out of gratitude Belfagor tells his rescuer his story, and promises to make him rich by possessing women and allowing himself to be driven out only by the peasant himself. So done. The peasant wins great renown; and at last Belfagor says that his obligations have been fulfilled, and that the peasant must look out for himself if they meet again. The devil now enters the daughter of Ludwig II, King of France. The peasant is summoned to cure her, but is afraid, and refuses. At last he is compelled to go, like the physician, against his will (see Benfey, 515 ff.). Belfagor rages when he sees the peasant, and threatens him vehemently. At last the peasant employs the usual trick: "Your wife is coming!" and the devil flees in consternation, choosing rather to rush back to hell than into the arms of his wife.

Benfey considers a Bohemian story in Wenzig's collection (West-slawische Märchen, Leipzig, 1857, p. 167) to be the best of all the popular versions belonging to this group, and he reproduces it in full (pp. 527-534). This long story we may pass over, since it contains no new features that are found in our story. In fact, it little resembles ours or any of the others, except in general in two or three episodes. Benfey concludes his discussion of this cycle by stating that there have been many other imitations of this tale, and he mentions some of these (p. 534). It may be added that further references will be found in Wilson's note in his edition of Dunlop, 2 : 188-190.

The question of the origin of the Pampango version of this story is not easy to answer definitely, for the reason that it presents details not found in any of the other variants. However, since nearly all the machinery of our story turns on the teachings of the Roman Church, and since the denouement is practically identical with the ending of Caballero's Andalusian story, I conclude that in its main outlines our version was derived from Spain. At the same time, I think it likely that the fairy-tale of "Mabait and the Duende" was already existent earlier in the Islands (though this, too, may have been imported), and that the motivation of the spirit's desire to revenge himself on his tormentor for his avarice and greed was incorporated into the Märchen from the fairy-tale. My reasons for thinking the fairy-tale the older are: (1) its crudeness (the good and the bad hero are a very awkward device compared with the combination of qualities in the guachinango); (2) its local references and its native names; (3) its use of native superstitions and beliefs.

 

FOOTNOTES

[73] Cintas, a holy belt worn by women.

[74] See note 1 on pagui ("sting-ray"), p. 43.

[75] Guachinango, defined by the narrator as "vagabond." The word is used in Cuba as a nickname for the natives of Mexico.

[76] While the term duende is Spanish, the other three spirits mentioned--tigbalang, iki, mananangal--are good old native demons.

[77] See footnote 1, p. 217.

[78] Same as the Cuban isabelina.

[79] The episode of a mutual cure being effected by a blind man and a lame man, we have already met with in two of the versions of our No. 6.

[80] It may be noted, in passing, that among certain of the Tagalogs the pestilence (cholera particularly) is personified as an old woman dressed in black, who goes about the town at night knocking for admittance. If any one pays attention to her summons, the result is fatal to him. This evil spirit is known as salut.

[The end]
Dean S. Fansler's short story: Devil And The Guachinango

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