General Five Tiger Transcript

Listen to Aideen McBride telling the story of General Five Tiger.

Welcome to the Dublin City Public Libraries and Archive Podcast. In this episode, storyteller Aideen McBride tells the tale of General Five Tiger, from 'Chinese Fairy Tales and Folk Tales', translated from the German by Desmond Parsons in 1937. Recorded for the 2014 Dublin Chinese New Year Festival.

Once there was a young man who lived on the hillsides in China with his mother. They were very poor. They had only a little bit of land on which to grow things and a few goats and sheep that lived up on the hillsides. The majority of their living was made by the young man gathering sticks to sell for firewood in the local village.  One day while gathering the sticks he heard a crying and moaning sound and following the sound on the hillside he came to a cave where he came across a Tigress ready to give birth to her cubs but crying in pain. He called for his mother and together the two of them stayed the night with the Tigress as she gave birth to four beautiful cubs. In the morning as the sun rose the old woman patted the Tigress goodbye and told her to make herself strong to look after her little ones, and as she was leaving the Tigress licked the back of her hand. The old woman laughed, ‘Ah’ she says, ‘you needn’t thank me at all but maybe now, just maybe if you could find a nice young woman that would make a good wife for my son. You could bring her to us because my son would make a good husband, but no one will marry him because we are poor.’  Now as the months passed they saw that the Tigress was doing well and the Cubs were getting bigger and healthier.

 The months passed by into the winter.  Now in that time in China, as it was here once in Ireland, when it came time to be married it would happen like this: for the girls your parents would come to your room and they’d say daughter we’ve found you a husband pack up your thing s, you’re leaving in the morning; and for the boys, the parents would come to your room and say son we’ve found you a wife. Get ready she's arriving in the morning. And so it was that there was a young woman on the far side of the hills who had been told to pack her things and get ready to leave for she was to be married to a man she'd never met before in a town on the other side of the hills. Well she was put into a palanquin that was carried on the shoulders of four servants and brought up across the mountains. The snow was thick on the ground, and as they were travelling a blizzard formed around them.  Near the top of the hill the servants heard a terrible roaring sound and looking around they saw themselves surrounded by five tigers, one tigress and her four almost grown cubs. They were frightened. They dropped the palanquin and ran way.  The young woman stepped out of the palanquin and finding herself surrounded by the tigers was frightened too and she ran through the only path she could find between the tigers. Every so often they would block her and she would be forced to turn in another direction, but she made her way down the hillside, that very same hillside that that young man and his mother lived on. Now the young man and his mother could hear this strange noise outside and opening up the door of their hut they saw the young woman racing down the hillside followed by the tigers. They called to her to come to their hut that she’d be safe there. As soon as she was inside the tiger stopped chasing her. The tigress sat in the snow with two of her cubs on either side of her looked straight into the face of the old woman, nodded her head and then turned and walked away. The old woman and her son were astonished. They brought the young woman into the hut and they calmed her down and made a warm bed for her by the fire for the night.

In the morning when the young woman awoke the old woman and her son were already out working and they were chatting and talking to each other. She enjoyed listening to them. There were so kind and pleasant to each other, never a cross word to say. And as she listened she looked around the little hut they lived in. She saw all the marks on the walls and the roof that had been patched up, all the cloths that were threadbare, all the work that needed to be done by the two of them, and she wondered at the kindness and friendliness that they were able to show to a stranger. When they came back inside the three of them were chatting and the old woman and her son were talking about the strange events of the night before. They told the young woman about how when the tigress had been giving birth to the cubs that they had helped her through the process and that how the old woman had said to her about bringing a wife for the son. And then they were quiet.  Now said the son, ‘if you are ready I’ll bring you across the hills to the next town’. But the young woman looked at him and she said, ‘listen, I don't know who my mother has arranged for me to marry. I don’t know if he’s a good man and a kind man or a cruel man.  But I know that you are good people and I would be happy to be married to you if you’ll have me’.  ‘But we are so poor’, said the young man. ‘I’d rather be poor and happy’ she said, ‘than rich and miserable’.  And so she married the young man and lived happily with him and his mother in the hut.

When the snows had cleared the man in the neighbouring town who was to have married her was furious. He accused the young man of stealing his bride and sent the police to arrest him and bring him to prison. He was brought before the court and the judge asked him to tell his side of the story and the young man did. He told the whole story just as I've told it to you, including all about the tigers. Well the judge laughed. Never had he heard a story so ridiculous in his life. The old woman realised the only way to save her son was to prove the story was true. So she went up onto the hillsides and called to the tigress. She told the tigress all that had happened and asked for her help and as she turned to walk back to the village, the tigress followed her. Into the village walked the old woman followed by the tigress and her four cubs.  The people ran from the streets, they bolted their doors, they called to the old woman to get out of the street but she walked on into the courthouse with the tigress behind her.  Now the judge had never had to question five tigers before and he was quite nervous. ‘We’ve been told by these people that they helped you when you were giving birth to your cubs.’  The tigress nodded her head.  ‘Oh, oh. And they said it was you who took the girl from the palanquin and brought her to the hut’. The tigress nodded her head.  ‘Oh then,’ said the judge, ‘there's no case against his young man. He is acquitted’.  The young man and his wife and his mother were delighted and they returned home.

Now, as you can imagine five tigers walking into a village like that created huge news and everyone who had seen it told somebody and everyone who heard it told somebody else and so the story spread right through China till it eventually came to the ears of the Emperor. The Emperor was very interested for he was having problems on the boundaries of his Empire with a band of bandits who would send in wild animals to attack the sheep and goats, and while the men were trying to protect their flocks would then go in and rob the houses. The Emperor had tried all kind of remedies, sent in whole armies but nothing had helped. Maybe a young man who had five tigers to help him could do what his army couldn't. So he sent for the young man and asked for his help. The young man agreed to see what he could do and he went up on the hillside and called for the tigress and explained to her what was going on and then headed off on the long journey to the borders of the Empire. The tigress and her four cubs followed him. When they came to the villages, the young man placed the tigers in among the sheep and goats, and then went back to the village where the men were all waiting.  Sure enough, the bandits sent in the wild animals. But when the wild animals heard the roars of the tigers, they ran away. And when the bandits came into the village they found that men of the village were all ready and waiting for them.  And like any band of bullies when they found someone to stand up for them, they too ran away. Very soon the whole area became calmer and more peaceful and settled. The Emperor was delighted. He built a home for the young man and his wife and his mother and he made him a general in his army. He named him General Five Tiger. And from that day on General Five Tiger lived with his wife and his mother in the house that was built for them and whenever they needed their help, the tigress and her cubs would come to them.

 

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