f), when three years old, "used
to eat daily half a ganta of rice and a pound of meat, besides fish and
vegetables;" the quantity of food he required increased steadily until,
when he was fourteen, his parents could no longer support him. However,
he never grew taller than a six-year-old boy. Dangandangan (g) could
walk and talk the day he was born. He could eat one cavan of rice
and one carabao daily. The hero of h was so greedy that by the time
he was a "young man" his father could no longer support him. He is
described as a "dwarf" In c and d there is nothing to indicate that
the hero was not always a Tom Thumb in size.

Nearly all these details may be found duplicated in Maerchen of the
"John the Bear" and "Strong Hans" types. For analogues, see Friedrich
Panzer's Beowulf, pp. 28-33, 47-48, 50-52. In Grimm's story of the
"Young Giant" (No. 90) the hero, when born, was only as big as a thumb,
and for several years did not grow one hair's breadth. But a giant
got hold of him and suckled him for six years, during which time he
grew tall and strong, after the manner of giants. It is interesting
to note that none of the nine Filipino versions make any reference to
an animal parentage or extraordinary source of nourishment of the hero.

B The poverty of the parents is the motive for their attempts on his
life in a, c, d, e, f, h. In a the mother proposes the scheme; in h,
the father; in g it is the boy's uncle, by whom he had been adopted
when his parents died. This "unnatural parents" motif is lacking in
the European variants.

B1-5 With the various attempts to destroy the hero may be discussed his
escapes (C1-3). The "falling-tree" episode occurs in all the stories
but one (b). The events of this incident are conducted in various
ways. In a, c, h, the hero is told to "catch the tree when it falls,"
so that he can carry it home (in c the hero is pushed clear into the
ground by the weight of the tree). In d the father directs his son to
stand in a certain place, "so that the tree will not fall on him;" but
when Sandangcal sees that he is about to be crushed, he nimbly jumps
aside unobserved by his father, who thinks him killed. In f the tree
is made to fall on the body of the sleeping hero. In g Darangdarang is
told to stand beside the tree being cut: it falls on him. In all the
stories but d the hero performs the feat of carrying home a tree on his
shoulders (C1). This episode is not uncommon in the European versions