From Tibet to Nigeria via Hollywood: travels of Chaucer’s ‘Pardoner’s Tale’
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18716/ojs/the_mouth.3126Abstract
The paper reports a new Nigerian version of the ‘Tale of the three robbers’ similar to that narrated by the Pardoner in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. It describes the diffusion of the story, originating as a birth narrative of the Buddha in the Himalayas, spreading westward to India, Persia and thence to Western Europe, where it was recorded as a folktale in Portugal in the last century. West African versions of the story are recorded among the Fulɓe pastoralists of the Fouta Jallon, and among the Nupe and now the Kamuku of Nigeria. More surprisingly, it has also been recorded among the Sakata of the southwest DRC. Its most plausible source is the Swahili inland trade, since there is a Swahili version which resembles the Persian versions. Its most recent re-incarnation has been the film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 1948, starring Humphrey Bogart. The constant re-invention and reframing of the core narrative suggests an attractive meme which has been transmitted across many centuries.
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