Complete Text of Lam-ang (an Iloko epic) - Page 15 of 16

(English version)

On the morrow then
Lam-ang set forth
He went at once
And soon arrived
Where he would dive
And Lam-ang took off his clothes.
He went to the school of rarang
For the man Lam-ang to survey
And when he saw
A rarang creeping
Lam-ang dived
But he could not find it.
He looked for it
A second time
And when he saw
The creeping rarang
Lam-ang dived again
And landed in the mouth
Of the fish the monster shark!

And the premonition happened
To his wife Cannoyan
The stairs danced
The kitchen roof fell
The stove broke to pieces.
Cannoyan then wept:
Ay my husband Lam-ang,
Where are you now?
I can't even find anybody
I can hire to dive
To arrange the bones.

The woman Cannoyan
Then searched for one
And after she found
The old Marcos, the skilled diver
She went and tied a string
On the white rooster
On the yellow-legged hen
Of the woman Cannoyan.
She also put a collar
On the hairy spotted dog.
Where colored fur grew
And then gathered
The hen and the rooster
And they set forth to leave.

And when they reached
Where Lam-ang had gone
They then found
The clothes of Lam-ang
Cannoyan wept
So great was her sorrow.
The rooster said:
Please don't worry
About our Apo
He will surely live
As long as are found
All his bones.

The old Marcos
The skilled diver dived
But could find nothing
He dived a second time
He found the bones
Excreted by the fish.

This yellow-legged cock
Was very perspicacious
Because it knew how to foretell
What would happen
To the man Lam-ang
And the woman Cannoyan.
The cock thus said:
Bring out at once
All the bones
Without any missing
Not even a single bone
So his life will be restored.

Learn this Filipino word:

kalabasang pulá