Beyond the Blue Mountain

Beyond the Blue Mountain: Thirty Filipino Folk Tales Collected in Baguio, 1948
Baguio, Mountain Province, February 1948.

High in the pine-clad mountains of Luzon - 5,000 feet above the sea, where Ifugao terraces carve the slopes and mist rolls through the valleys - an American teacher sat by a window and wrote down the stories children told around their fires.

He gathered them from Filipino students' classroom themes, from his father-in-law Amado O. Picart of Baguio who spoke the Igorot dialects, and from mountain villages that had scarcely been explored. He wrote: "Beyond the blue mountain is another which I cannot see but I know it is there, and another behind it and still another behind that."
For over 70 years that manuscript, with its hand-drawn illustrations, waited in a drawer. This book is that manuscript - preserved exactly as it was told.

Inside you will find 30 timeless tales, including:

• Why the Hen Scratches - the story of a lost ring and a hawk who still steals her chicks
• Why the Turtle Carries His House - how the turtles lost their villages to fire
• The Dwarfs' Parade - little Jose and the duwendes who marched with sacks of jewels
• Why the Sky is High - how a woman's beads, comb, and cooking pot became the stars, the crescent moon, and the sun
• The Origin of Butterflies, Coconuts, Bananas, and Rain - and many more
• 11 Authentic Igorot Tales identified by the author: The Ki-ling and the Rat, Why Crocodiles Eat Human Beings, Mount Data Falls, Tuguinguing and Kot-éng, The Monkey Judge, and more

Perfect for:

• Filipino-American families sharing heritage with their children
• Teachers and homeschool parents teaching Asian folklore and world mythology
• Lovers of fairy tales, folk tales, and cultural history
• Readers who want the gentle, wise, and sometimes funny stories that little boys and girls in the Mountain Province heard by the fire

>Thompson Story Studio- Preserving stories that would otherwise be lost.