Bagelen is a region of Java — in the colonial geography of Netherlands-India, a residentie on the south coast of Central Java — cited in Vol. I of The Achehnese as a place where C. Snouck Hurgronje himself made notes on the Javanese myth of the Kalangs. The myth is brought into the work for purposes of comparison with the Achehnese legend of the origin of the Niasese, and Bagelen is named only as the locality from which Snouck’s own version of the story was collected.
The Javanese myth of the Kalangs shares with the Achehnese legend of Nias the motifs of the dog and the incestuous marriage, but adds a third feature absent from the Nias version: the ancestress of the Kalangs is the offspring of a wild sow, “the most unclean of all animals.” The princess who lived in the wilderness was, in the Kalang legend, born of this sow in a miraculous manner. As Snouck notes: “See Veth’s Java, III, p. 580 et seq.; a version of the story of which I made notes in Bagelen differs somewhat from that of Prof. Veth’s authorities.”
The additional Javanese detail, given in a footnote, makes the princess drop her shuttle while weaving and, being disinclined to rise, swear an unlucky oath that whoever should pick it up should wed her; the dog hastened to fetch the shuttle and thus became her husband. Snouck also cites, from the Latin, a parallel tradition concerning Ratu Baka and the origin of the same myth.
The mention of Bagelen in Vol. I is thus incidental: it is the locality in Java where the field-version of the Kalang legend was recorded, used for comparative purposes against the Achehnese story of Nias. The comparison is one of many by which Snouck places the popular traditions of Acheh in the wider setting of Indonesian and Indian folklore, and it shows his method of drawing on personal observation as well as on printed authorities such as Veth and the Tijdschrift van het Bataviaasch Genootschap.
See Also
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.