Re: Folk tales : eega kadha

Bapa Rao (baparao@locus.com)
Thu, 14 Dec 1995 11:28:36 -0800 (PST)

Thanks to Madhava Kumar and others for the iiga katha, whose details I had
forgotten. Now, I can tell it to my daughter!

It is likely that the repetitive accumulation found in folk tales like
iiga katha is common to folk tales and songs of many cultures. I have
a cassette tape of American childrens' folk songs sung by the great
American folk singer Pete Seeger, which contains, among other things,
a song about an old lady who swallowed a fly (don't know why-she swallowed
a fly) and then swallows a frog to catch the fly, a cat to catch the frog,
etc. etc. until she ends up swallowing a horse (now, she'll surely die).
Each stanza repeats all the accumulated information of the previous stanza
and adds an extra unit of information, just like the iiga katha.

The raazu-EDuguru koDukulu katha can also be transformed easily into such
an accumulative form. I sometimes use this transformation when telling the
story to my daughter.

Bapa Rao