The Story of Tam and Cam
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Story of Tam and Cam is a Vietnamese fairy tale collected by L. T. Bach-Lan in Vietnamese Legends.[1]
It is Aarne-Thompson type 510A. Others of this type include Cinderella, Fair, Brown and Trembling, Finette Cendron, The Golden Slipper, The Green Knight, Katie Woodencloak, Rushen Coatie, The Sharp Grey Sheep, and The Wonderful Birch.[2]
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
A man with a daughter, Tam, married a wicked woman. Soon she had another daughter, Cam, and made Tam do all the housework. One day, she sent Tam and Cam to fish, threatening to beat them if they did not catch many fish. Tam, knowing that Cam would not be beaten, fished; Cam played. Then she warned Tam that her hair was muddy and she should wash it before it angered her mother. While Tam washed her hair, Cam stole her fish. The Goddess of Mercy -- or, in other variants, the Buddha -- gave her a small fish and told her to put it in the well and feed it.
Her stepmother saw how she went to the well. She sent Tam far away, killed the fish, and ate it. The Goddess of Mercy appeared again and told her bury the fish's bones; then she could pray to them and get whatever she wished for. Tam could not find them. A hen offered her help for some paddy; Tam gave the hen it, followed her, and buried the fish. From the grave, she could get whatever she wished for.
During the Autumn Festival, her stepmother mixed together black and green beans and told her to sort them before she went. The Goddess of Mercy turned flies into sparrows that sorted the beans for her. Tam dressed herself splendidly and went to the Festival. Cam thought she was very like Tam, and when Tam saw Cam and her stepmother studying her, she ran away so quickly that she left behind her shoe. The king ordered that whoever could wear it would be the King's First Wife. It fit Tam, and she became the King's First Wife.
One day, she went home to celebrate her father's anniversery. Her stepmother asked her to climb an areca tree for nuts. Being filial, Tam did so, and the stepmother cut down the tree, killing her. The stepmother persuaded the king to take Cam in her place, but Tam became a nightingale and sang to the king until he knew she was his wife. Cam killed the bird and threw the body away. Tam became a tree bearing a single, magnificient fruit. An old woman begged it to fall to her, and it did. She took it home but could not eat it. The next day, she found that when she left, the housework was done while she was gone. She spied, saw Tam come from the fruit, and tore up the peel so she could no longer turn back.
One day, the king, lost while hunting, stopped by the hut. He saw how the bed had been made, as his late queen had been; the old woman told him her daughter had done it, and the king made her produce the daughter, and saw it was Tam. He took her back. Cam thought if she were as beautiful as Tam, she would win him back; she asked Tam how to be beautiful. Tam told her to jump in a basin of boiling water; she did, and died.
In some versions of the story, there is an extended ending where Tam also exacts revenge on her stepmother by having Cam's body made into sauce and sending a jar of it to her stepmother, claiming it to be a "gift from Cam." Every day, the stepmother ate some of the delicious sauce with her food. However, when she finally reached the bottom of the jar, she discovered Cam's skull inside and immediately died of shock.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ D. L. Ashliman, "A Cinderella Tale from Vietnam"
- ^ Heidi Anne Heiner, "Tales Similar to Cinderella"
