Folktale: Cat Wearing Mandarin Hat and Thunder Man

Real World Reference:

Such folktale firmly related to Fertility Ritual is not be clumsily structured, and Real East Asia has rich tradition of such feeling..... Rice Harvest from paddy in East Asia is much greater than that of plain Field of Europe in Real World, (before Industrial Age and chemical fertilizer)



China
Shen-Nung
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/s/shen-nung.html

FuXi and Nugua (The story part 2 is mainly concerned to the brother and sister.)
http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-EPT/whalen.htm

The Golden Elixir
http://helios.unive.it/~dsao/pregadio/index.html

Japan

Basic Terms of ShinTu
http://www.kokugakuin.ac.jp/ijcc/wp/bts/index.html

Japanese Emperor has an aspect of Worship as the king of seed and Sun God, read about annual Niiname and Ooname Ritual performed when newly emperor appointed.
http://www.kokugakuin.ac.jp/ijcc/wp/cpjr/kami/ito.html#para0022


I don't have enough research on Korea and India, but my lack of knowledge doesn't mean deficiency of itself.


The story Part 1 of Mr and Mrs Paddyworker, their daughter (too poor to wed wealthy hasband, lack of dowry) and Cat is of course from Perrault's Folktale: Master Cat and Boots, Puss in Boots? (Original Text is based on D.L. Ashliman's.) I think Chinese Cat wears not boots but bamboo hat made by his mistess.
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/perrault04.html
http://www.angelfire.com/nb/classillus/images/perrault/puss.html

Glorantha Reference:
Sandy's Kralori tales, General Joon and Pig Men, Li Pin Po and General Joon and Li Pin Po and Beast King are all can be found at Oliver Bernuetz's Mything Link.


About Kralorela, current input of Earth Worship = Innatist and Common Magic (derived from HeroQuest and Voices) and Vithelan = Kralori, immigrated from East (from Revealed Mythologies) are important for making up mystical structure. (Ebe and Okerio are identified with couple of Iste and Majadan in Vithelan Cosmology.)

Part 2 hints the connection of Ebe-Aptanence-Julang Hombondol (Canals for Field).
Seralaloon (Daughter of Vith? (TarnGatHa?) and Miyo (Daughter of Shavaya) See above about Shen-Nung of Real World Mythology, (Fire-Emperor?)
Daughter of Emerald Fish Lord and Mikaday, can be also included in such broad category of fertility mythological cycle. (Deluge and Drought, balance) Canals?


*Migration Epic: Fonritans (Garangordos) or Heortling (Orlanth came from Dini and conquered Ernaldela, as Dorians did to Mycenaeans in Real World Greece.) also contributing the image of another immigration myth for this Kralori story.

<<euhemerism: noun A theory attributing the origin of the gods to the deification of historical heroes.

[After Euhemerus, fourth-century B.C. Greek philosopher.]>>


*Thunder Man and Cat?
(Fu-Xi and Nu-Gua?)
I love the Kralori tale of Anaxial Roster, How the Cats domesticated People (p.39-40).

Part 1

(Inspired by, of course "the Puss in Boots" of Charles Perrault, I suppose the folktale of Mr. and Mrs. Paddyworker (Rice Farmer) in Anaxial Roster (p.39-40) might be same personalities in Dara Happan Sky for this common crop. See Mr. and Mrs. Hardworking Paddyworker in this table: http://www2u.biglobe.ne.jp/~BLUEMAGI/NamesofHB-e.htm)

After Rice Mother died, Mr. and Mrs. Paddyworkers worked hard and deligently served with Miyo's gift and Emperor Shavaya's order, but it wasn't enough for Sekever and her Sortum Army. Whose only inheritance to his two sons and one daughter was their small hut, their stockage tower, and their cat. The division was soon made. They hired neither a clerk nor an attorney, for they would have eaten up all the poor patrimony. The eldest son took the hut, the second the tower, and the youngest daughter nothing but the cat.

The poor young daughter was quite comfortless for having received so little. "My brothers," said she, "may make a handsome living by joining their shares together; but, for my part, after I have eaten up my cat, and made myself a muff from his skin, I don't have dowry to marry proper husband worthy enough to my birth. I must then die of hunger."

The cat, who heard all this, but pretended otherwise, said to her with a grave and serious air, "Do not be so concerned, my good mistress. If you will but give me a small pot, and have a noble hat of bamboo made for me, that I may scamper through the dirt and the brambles, then you shall see that you are not so poorly off with me as you imagine."

The cat's mistress did not build very much upon what he said. However, she had often seen him play a great many cunning tricks to catch rats and mice, such as hanging by his heels, or hiding himself in the meal, and pretending to be dead; so he did take some hope that he might give her some help in her miserable condition.

After receiving what he had asked for, the cat gallantly pulled on the hat and slung the pot about his neck. Holding its drawstrings in his forepaws, he went to a secret ford where there was a great abundance of golden and red carps. He put some river weed and greens into his bag, then stretched himself out as if he were dead. He thus waited for some elder carps, beautiful but bored with the deceits of the world, to come and look into his bag and the pond of Great Mandarin of Sapphire.

He had scarcely lain down before he had what he wanted. A Elderly and otherworldly elder carp jumped into his bag, and the master cat, immediately closed the strings.

Proud of his prey, he went with it to the court, and asked to speak with Mandarin of Sapphire famous for his scholarly career. He was shown upstairs into the Mandarin's apartment, and, making a kowtow properly, said to him, "Sir, I have brought you a carp from my noble lord, the Mistress of Two Green Shade and Mulberry" (for that was the title which the cat was pleased to give his master).

"Tell your mistress," said the young but erudite Mandarin, "that I thank her, and that I am very pleased with her gift."

Another time he went and hid himself in a grain field. He again held his bag open, and when a brace of song birds ran into it, he drew the strings, and caught them both. He presented these to the mandarin, as he had done before with the carp. The mandarin, in like manner, received the song birds with great pleasure, and gave him a tip. The cat continued, from time to time for two or three months, to take game to his highness from his master. One time, the Mandarin so pleased for his gift that he bestowed the cat a paper talisman with his own seal.

One day, when he knew for certain that the mandarin would be taking a drive over the palanquin along the riverside to see his Canton, he said to his mistress, "If you will follow my advice your fortune is made. All you must do is to go and bathe yourself in the river at the place I show you, then leave the rest to me."

The the Mistress of Two Green Shade and Mulberry did what the cat advised her to, without knowing why. While she was bathing the mandarin passed by, and the cat began to cry out, "Help! Help! the Mistress of Two Green Shade and Mulberry is going to be drowned."

At this noise the mandarin put his head out of his palanquin, and, finding it was the cat who had so often brought him such good game, he commanded his guards to run immediately to the assistance of her ladyship the Mistress of Two Green Shade and Mulberry. While they were drawing the poor Mistress out of the river, the cat came up to the coach and told the Mandarin that, while his mistress was bathing for Sacred Prayer to Emerald Fish Lord, some rogues had come by and stolen her clothes, even though he had cried out, "Thieves! Thieves!" several times, as loud as he could. In truth, the cunning cat had hidden the clothes under a large stone.

The mandarin immediately commanded the maidens of his wardrobe to run and fetch one of their best dresses for the Mistress of Two Green Shade and Mulberry.

The mandarin received her very courteously. And, because the mandarin's hoosehold fine dresses gave her a striking appearance (for she was very beautiful and errudite despite her birth), the Mandarin took a secret inclination to her. The Mistress had only to cast two or three respectful and somewhat tender glances at him (but the Mandarin nearly fell head over heels in love with her despite of his status.) The mandarin asked her to enter the coach and join them on their drive.

The cat, quite overjoyed to see how his project was succeeding, ran on ahead. Meeting some countrymen who were mowing a paddy fiel, he said to them, "My good fellows, if you do not tell the mandarin that the paddy field you are mowing belongs to my Mistress of Two Green Shade and Mulberry, you shall be chopped up like mincemeat."

The mandarin did not fail to ask the mowers whose meadow it was that they were mowing.

"It belongs to my Mistress of Two Green Shade and Mulberry," they answered altogether, for the cat's threats had frightened them.

"You see, sir," said the Mistress, "this is a paddy field which never fails to yield a plentiful harvest every year."

The cat, still running on ahead, met with some reapers, and said to them, "My good fellows, if you do not tell the mandarin that all this rice field belongs to Mistress of Two Green Shade and Mulberry, you shall be chopped up like mincemeat."

The mandarin, who passed by a moment later, asked them whose rice field it was that they were reaping.

"It belongs to my Mistress of Two Green Shade and Mulberry," replied the reapers, which pleased both the mandarin and the mistress. The mandarin congratulated her for her fine harvest. The cat continued to run ahead and said the same words to all he met, which caused him even more difficulty, because his bamboo hut were of no use at all to him in running fast. The mandarin was astonished at the vast estates of the patroness, the Mistress of Two Green Shade and Mulberry inside of his administration domain.

The cat came at last to a stately castle, the lord of which was Thunder Man, the richest of the Canton that had ever been known. All the lands which the mandarin had just passed by belonged to the castle (illegally, for Emperors banned Sky Officers to hold Earthly Estates). The cat, who had taken care to inform himself who this lord was and what he could do, asked to speak with him, saying he could not pass so near his castle without having the honor of paying his respects to him.

Thunder Man, who usually caring Thunderbolts and Lightnings inside his office of ShanShan stayed his illegal home at that time, received him as civilly as an Sky Captain could do, and invited him to sit down. "I have heard," said the cat, "that you are able to change yourself into any kind of creature that you have a mind to. You can, for example, transform yourself into a tiger, an elephant, or the like."

"That is true," answered the Thunder Man very briskly; "and to convince you, I shall now become a tiger."

The cat was so terrified at the sight of a tiger so near him that he leaped onto the roof. However, the Thunder Man resumed his natural form, and the cat came down, saying that he had been very frightened indeed.

"I have further been told," said the cat, "that you can also transform yourself into the smallest of animals, for example, a rat or a mouse. But I can scarcely believe that. I must admit to you that I think that that would be quite impossible."

"Impossible!" cried the Thunder Man. "You shall see!"

He immediately changed himself into a mouse and began to run about the floor. As soon as the cat saw this, he fell upon him and put him inside of the pot he used for fishes and birds. The cat sealed the spout with the paper talisman which the Mandarin of Sapphire bestowed to him.

Though Thunder Man threatened the cat with terrible Thunder from inside of the pot, the cat threatened back to him, "Your occupation of earthly domain is illegal under the law of Emperor, I can report it to the erudite Mandarin of Sapphire, of this Canton." The pot became quiet only sounds sobbing of Thunder Man.

Meanwhile the mandarin, who saw this fine castle of the Thunder Man's as he passed, decided to go inside. The cat, who heard the noise of his highness's palanquin running over the drawbridge, ran out and said to the mandarin, "Your highness is welcome to this castle of my Lady Mistress of Two Green Shade and Mulberry."

"What! my Lady Mistress," cried the mandarin, "and does this castle also belong to you? There can be nothing finer than this court and all the stately buildings which surround it. Let us go inside, if you don't mind."

The mistress gave her hand to the mandarin, and invited him inside of the castle. They passed into a spacious hall, where they found a magnificent feast, which the Thunder Man had prepared for his fairy and monster friends of Mountain, who were coming to visit him that very day, but dared not to enter, knowing the mandarin of Sapphire was there.

His highness was perfectly charmed with the good qualities of my Lady Mistress of Two Green Shade and Mulberry and had fallen violently in love with her, and, seeing the vast estate she possessed, said to her, after having trading five or six fine poems, "If you don't consider my discourtesy too breach of etiquette, my Lady Mistress, I want to propose marriage to you and help my work in this Canton as my wife."

The mistress, after making several bows as a sign accepting his apology to discortesy and refusing three times according to tradition, accepted the honor which his majesty conferred upon her, and forthwith, that very same day, married the Erudite Mandarin of Sapphire.

The cat became a chief administrator of the treasury, and never again ran after mice, except for entertainment. He sealed the deepest chamber of the treasury where he put on the pot which Thunder Man sobbing and wailing about his foolishness. (Later, he was freed and tried to make revenge on the cat, that is next story: Part 2.)

Part 2
(How Thunder Man freed and the Children of Erudite Mandarin escaped the deluge which caused by Thunder Man's anger, how the elderly cat tricked him again. Derived from RW Chinese Folktale)

Older Notes
Thunder Man was jealous to Mr. and Mrs. Paddyworker died after their struggle to long draught, three still young children were left after them,

The cat brought brilliant Carp (not bird....[TI])to the court of Mandarin [Black Prince's court?] and handed it to the young Mandarin as a gift of Princess of Two Green Shade and Mulberry.