The Project Gutenberg EBook of Shan Folk Lore Stories from the Hill and
Water Country, by William C. Griggs

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Title: Shan Folk Lore Stories from the Hill and Water Country

Author: William C. Griggs

Release Date: May 15, 2010 [EBook #32375]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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SHAN FOLK LORE STORIES
FROM THE
HILL AND WATER COUNTRY

BY
WILLIAM C. GRIGGS, M. D.

TO MY FRIEND
J. N. Cushing, D. D., F. R. A. S.
_Principal of the American Baptist College, Rangoon, and Senior
Shan Missionary, the greatest authority upon
Shan literature, and the translator of the
Bible into that language, this
little book is dedicated by_
THE AUTHOR

INTRODUCTION

The following stories have been taken from the great mass of unwritten
lore that is to the black-eyed, brown-skinned boys and girls of the Shan
mountain country of Burma what "Jack the Giant Killer" and "Cinderella"
are to our own children.

The old saw as to the songs and laws of a country may or may not be
true. I feel confident, however, that stories such as these, being as
they are purely native, with as little admixture of Western ideas as it
was possible to give them in dressing them in their garment of English
words, will give a better insight into what the native of Burma really
is, his modes of thought and ways of looking at and measuring things,
than a treatise thrice as long and representing infinitely more literary
merit than will be found in these little tales; and at the same time I
hope they will be found to the average reader, at least, more
interesting.

It may, perhaps, be not out of place to say a little of the "_hpeas_"
who appear so frequently in these stories. The _hpea_ is the Burman
_nat_, and is "a being superior to men and inferior to Brahmas, and
having its dwelling in one of the six celestial regions" (Doctor
C