A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
Overview
A female Pied Robin gathers coconut refuse and rice dust, pounds flour after neighboring women refuse to help, and makes an enormous cake. With a tied hair-knot and a narrow cloth she sets out seeking marriage, questioning prospective partners about their food. She rejects a jackal and a blind man, then accepts a man with a bent back who says he eats rice cakes. No removal of feathers or transformation into a human is narrated.
At his house she discovers that the cooking rice needs water. Her words and the sounds of a frog and water pouring into a pot are heard by her husband as insults about his body. He kills the frog, breaks the pot, quarrels with a headman and finally kills the bird and eats her cakes. Parker identifies the North-western Province telling and explains several phrases as imitations of the bird’s song. The account preserves this violent ending without presenting disability as a supernatural condition.
Origins & earliest records
Sri Lankan narratives collected and translated by H. Parker
Records & interpretation
Complete tale and all its printed variants/comparative notes read; relevant introduction passages on collection and translation directly read.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon, Volume I
No. 29, The Pied Robin, pp. 206–208
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
Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon, Volume I
Volume I. No. 29, The Pied Robin, pp. 206–208
Complete tale and all attached variants, comparisons and footnotes read in cached Parker volume I. Narrator/listener disagreement, imitative-song glosses and absent human transformations retained explicitly.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Historical collected oral narrative translationParker, Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon I — No. 29, The Pied Robin, pp. 206–208Research access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.