A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

Overview

In Parker’s No.233, a young merchant’s ship drifts to an unfamiliar country. The inhabitants have faces like dogs and bodies like the sailors’ own. The narrative says that they eat human flesh, so the visitors fear for their safety. The boy proposes cooking a large rice feast and inviting the inhabitants aboard, introducing them to food they have neither seen nor tasted before.

The guests enjoy it and ask what they can offer in exchange. They have no money of the kind the sailors request, but possess pieces of gold and silver. They bring these in sacks and trade for rice. The sailors leave secretly at night while still afraid, having obtained about twelve sacks of precious metals for no more than a hundred bags of rice. No attack or actual consumption of a sailor occurs. Their fear should not erase the narrated exchange or turn the trading scene into a battle.

The merchants convert the metals into money elsewhere, buy more ships and return home, where the boy’s success is acknowledged. The dog-faced inhabitants receive no country name, personal names, further transformation or eventual fate. Parker’s note compares their form with animal-headed yaksha images in temples; it does not identify them as Yakshas in the main tale. These are inhabitants of a marvelous narrative destination, with no asserted correspondence to an actual ethnic group.

Dog-like facesHuman-like bodiesUnfamiliarity with riceGold and silver exchange
01

Origins & earliest records

Sri Lankan maritime wonder tale in Parker’s collection

02

Records & interpretation

Complete No.233 and all five footnotes read.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon, Volume III

    H. Parker · 1914

    No.233, The Fortunate Boy, pp.234–239; notes through p.240. Sinhalese title translated in note1 as The Story of the Ship and the Heṭṭiyā.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

Primary records and illustrations

Direct primary record

H. Parker, Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon, Volume III (1914)

III. No.233, pp.234–240; encounter pp.237–238

Full parker3-s233.txt main/all5notes read. Human bodies/dog faces explicit; visitors trade not attacked; note4 yaksha-iconography comparison not automatic identity. No real ethnic mapping.

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References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Historical translated folktaleParker, Volume III (1914), No.233Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

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