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

Overview

A farmer grows a gourd so large that several villagers must help carry it. After cleaning and drying its shell, he keeps it for use. When torrential rain floods his home during a devil-dance, the assembled company enters the gourd, seals its opening with wax and continues dancing inside. The rising water carries their improvised vessel down a river and into the sea.

A fish swallows the entire gourd and seems stupefied, turning about in the water. A great hawk then swallows the fish and becomes unconscious on a branch. A hunter shoots it and brings it to his wife for cooking. When she opens the bird she finds the fish, and inside the fish the dried gourd. The outer animals are cooked and eaten; the people remain concealed inside the shell.

Faint sounds from the gourd lead the woman to strike it with a bill-hook. Its occupants emerge alive, discover that they are in another country and ask their way home. Their survival depends on the nested gourd shelter rather than a narrated resurrection. The fish and hawk have no personal names, measured dimensions or hybrid anatomy; their extraordinary capacity is demonstrated by swallowing the whole company in succession. The devil-dance is a human performance, and no actual demon appears. Parker’s separate comparisons involving fish swallowing ships or infants are not additional events in this tale.

Enormous animals in a nested-swallowing taleSource-specific narrative
01

Origins & earliest records

Historical tale collected by H. Parker

02

Records & interpretation

Complete main narrative, variants, comparisons and 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.262, The Gourd Fruit Devil-Dance, main pp.384–385; comparisons pp.385–386; one footnote.

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.262, The Gourd Fruit Devil-Dance, main pp.384–385; comparisons pp.385–386; one footnote.

Complete parker3-s262.txt read and retained. Main witness and comparative material kept distinct; no invented taxonomy or imported ending.

Inspect the digitized plate · Source collection manifest

References

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

  1. Historical translated folktaleParker, Volume III (1914), No.262, The Gourd Fruit Devil-Dance, main pp.384–385; comparisons pp.385–386; one footnote.Research 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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