Folk Tales from Chile

These folktales abound in stories of the cacique (headman of the village), the kalku (village sorcerer), the machi (the good sorcerer), the cuero (a fantastic creature), the chonchon (a form the kalku takes so it can fly through the night). The stories are varied: a russet cow's magic saves a boy and the boy's father and sister. A girl whose face has turned to stone gathers bones until she has enough for a whole skeleton--and miraculously, she is cured. A clever Princess will marry only someone whose riddle she cannot answer. A little tenca, a Chilean song bird, laments a burnt foot all through a cumulative tale only to find that her foot is well after all. And so it goes through 15 of these compelling stories.