"Dogs Rescue Master from Tree Refuge," an African folktale with world-wide analogs

Western Folklore, Winter 1998 by Goldberg, Christine

4. The ogre is the cannibal mother-in-law of the hero in four tales from the eastern part of Africa (Bascom's nos. 44, 51, 56, 59).

5. The ogre is a monster who has kidnapped the sister of the hero, in which case the sister is the cause of the encounter but not herself treacherous. This happens in three African tales (Bascom nos. 8, 43, 50), five from North America (nos. 67, 72, 79, 80, 83; cf. no. 81 where the sister's sweeping dirt into a well provokes the villain) and one from the Caribbean (no. 98).

6. The ogre is the monster or devil husband of the hero's sister in one variant from Spain, two African variants, three variants from the Caribbean, and three from South America (Bascom nos. 1, 6, 41, 95, 99, 100, 114, 116, 117). In a French variant from Missouri (Bascom's no. 69), the ogre is the mother of the hero's sister's devious boyfriend (see below). The following Nahautl example from Mexico was published after Bascom finished his study:

Two abandoned children meet a lion and a tiger. When an old man threatens to eat the sister, she offers him her brother instead. The brother climbs a tree, and the old man threatens to eat him. The brother whistles for his animals, who eat the old man. The brother rescues a king's daughter from a seven-headed monster. A charcoalseller impersonates him and marries the king's daughter. The brother is killed but is revived by his animals9 (Taggart 1986:448-51). This characteristic set of villains, the treacherous sister and her ogre husband, indicates the influence of AT 315. When the hero is killed by the sister and resuscitated by his dogs, or when his dogs save him from being poisoned, that scene too comes from AT 315. In Bascom's no. 95 (from the Dominican Republic), the sister kills her brother with a poisoned pin, and his dogs revive him by removing the pin. In no. 100 (from Puerto Rico), the sister puts her two teeth into his bed on his wedding night. The dogs dig up the corpse and suck the teeth out.

A French tale from Missouri is interesting because it combines the treacherous sister who tries to poison her brother (successfully, in this case) with the African motif of the ogre who produces many devils.

A brother and sister vow never to marry, but the sister falls in love with a fairy who encourages her to poison her brother. The brother's three dogs upset the poisoned soup. The mother of the sister's lover asks the brother to climb an apple tree. His dogs come and chase the fairy and her devils away. Again the sister poisons her brother's soup and the dogs spill it. A third time, however, the dogs are chained and the brother dies (Bascom no. 69).

This set of villains is rare in Africa. The two examples come from widely-spread places (from the Limba of Sierra Leone and the Luba of Zaire) and constitute only four percent of the relevant African material. In contrast, this motif occurs in half (three out of six) of the South American texts and also in the only Mexican text. The death of the hero and his resuscitation by his animals is absent from Bascom's African material. This motif is absent in "Dogs Rescue Master from Tree Refuge" the United States, where the tale tradition is less influenced by the Spanish. (However, it does occur in Rael's [1977] no. 247, a version of AT 315.) The New World "Dogs Rescue Master from Tree Refuge" texts with the treacherous sister are actually based on the Mediterranean tradition of AT 315 AT 315A IV.