The Monkey and the Firefly

About the legend

Being

Visayan animal tale

Cultural meaning

In many Philippine animal tales, the smallest creature wins against the biggest, not by strength but by being quick, patient and clever: a turtle against a monkey, or a firefly against a whole troop of monkeys. The big animals in these tales are often proud and boastful rather than wicked, and in the end it is their own strength that trips them up.

Fun fact

The teachers who wrote this tale down gathered their Visayan stories on Panay in 1904, right in their classrooms. Many of the stories were written by schoolchildren as part of their English lessons.

Cultural notes

The tale was printed as "Arnomongo and Iput-Iput (The Ape and the Firefly)" by Berton L. Maxfield and W. H. Millington, two American teachers in Iloilo and Mandurriao on Panay, in the Journal of American Folk-Lore in 1907. They collected their Visayan tales from teachers and pupils, and when a tale came from a teacher who knew Spanish, they checked it with children who knew no Spanish, so that it could not be a translation of a Spanish tale. The title gives the two animals the names Arnomongo and Iput-Iput, which the collectors translated as the ape and the firefly; in this telling they are the characters' own names. Dean S. Fansler printed a Bicol version in Filipino Popular Tales (1921), told by Pedro D. L. Sorreta of Albay, who said it was very common on the island of Catanduanes. In it, a monkey drives a tired dragonfly out of his tree, her brother the dragonfly king sends a challenge, and the dragonflies land on the monkeys' foreheads. Fansler connected the first half of the Panay tale with a Kapampangan story about a trial among the animals, in which a firefly also carries his light because of a mosquito. He pointed to the same trick in "The Dog and the Sparrow", printed by the Brothers Grimm, and in a fable from Celebes about a butterfly and ten monkeys, and he placed the tale in the large cycle of stories about wars between the winged creatures of the air and the four-footed beasts. He thought the Bicol and Visayan forms were native to the islands and had not come to them through the Spanish.

About this retelling

Traditional retelling of a Visayan animal tale The Visayan tale of the ape and the firefly, collected on Panay more than a hundred years ago, retold for children.

The Panay tale gives the story its whole path: the firefly on his way to a friend, the ape who asks why he carries a light, the mosquitoes, the word coward told to all the neighbors, the flash in the sleeping ape's face, the meeting on the plaza on Sunday evening when the six o'clock bells ring, the firefly who comes alone while the ape boasts of a thousand apes, the trick on the noses down the line, the last one who gives up and is spared, and the ending. We changed four things for children. In the old tale, the apes bring clubs, and every blow kills the ape in front; ours bring nothing, swat with their hands and end in a wobbly pile with pink noses. The old firefly comes to the ape's house very angry and speaks of a fight; ours is calm and asks only which of them is braver. When the church bells ring the Angelus, the old firefly asks everyone to pray; ours asks everyone to stand still until the bells are done. And where the old tale ends with apes who have been terrified of fireflies ever since, ours ends with monkeys who cover their noses. The forest by the rice fields, the mango tree, the plaza as the forest animals' grassy clearing, the birds and geckos who pass the word on, the troop of seven, the youngest monkey and his questions, the week of practice, Arnomongo's apology and his round of every neighbor, the firefly's arrival at his friend's house, and all the words the characters speak were written for Filipino Tales.

Sources

• Berton L. Maxfield and W. H. Millington, "Visayan Folk-Tales III", Journal of American Folk-Lore 20 (1907), p. 314: "Arnomongo and Iput-Iput (The Ape and the Firefly)" (Internet Archive (1907 volume), Project Gutenberg)
• Dean S. Fansler, "Filipino Popular Tales" (American Folk-Lore Society, 1921), Tale 57: "The Monkeys and the Dragon-Flies" (Project Gutenberg, Internet Archive (1921 edition))

Themes

• Courage
• Respect
• Kindness
• Panay
• Visayas
• Visayan
• Animal fables
• Firefly
• Monkeys
• Courage
• Being careful

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