Philippine Folklore Stories

Produced by Jeroen Hellingman
By John Maurice Miller, Boston, U.S.A.
1904
Preface
As these stories are only legends that have been handed down from remote times, the teacher must impress upon the minds of the children that they are myths and are not to be given credence; otherwise the imaginative minds of the native children would accept them as truth, and trouble would be caused that might be hard to remedy. Explain then the fiction and show the children the folly of belief in such fanciful tales.
Contents
The Tobacco of Harisaboqued The Pericos Quicoy and the Ongloc The Passing of Loku The Light of the Fly Mangita and Larina How the World Was Made The Silver Shower The Faithlessness of Sinogo Catalina of Dumaguete The Fall of Polobolac The Escape of Juanita The Anting-Anting of Manuelito When the Lilies Return
The Tobacco of Harisaboqued
A legend of the volcano of Canlaon on the island of Negros. It is told generally in Western Negros and Eastern Cebu. The volcano is still active, and smoke and steam rise from its crater.
Long before the strange men came over the water from Spain, there lived in Negros, on the mountain of Canlaon, an old man who had great power over all the things in the earth. He was called Harisaboqued, King of the Mountain.
When he wished anything done he had but to tap the ground three times and instantly a number of little men would spring from the earth to answer his call. They would obey his slightest wish, but as he was a kind old man and never told his dwarfs to do anything wrong, the people who lived near were not afraid. They planted tobacco on the mountain side and were happy and prosperous,
The fields stretched almost to the top of the mountain and the plants grew well, for every night Harisaboqued would order his dwarfs to attend to them, and though the tobacco was high up it grew faster and better than that planted in the valley below.