Awang Sulong Merah Muda. 
A MALAY FOLK-TALE. 
EDITED BY R. O. WINSTEDT OF F.M.S. CIvIL SERVICE. 
The present version of Awang Sulong Merah Muda is 
one that was collected by Mr. Abraham Hale some years ago 
in the Negri Sembilan. At the request of Mr. R. J. Wilkinson, 
I set about editing it for the series of pamphlets in Romanized 
Malay being printed at the Methodist Publishing House with the 
assistance of the Government of the Federated Malay States. 
While engaged on the task, I came across an old Termusai 
Malay, Pawang Ana, the father-in-law of Mir Hassan, the 
rhapsodist from whom Sir William Maxwell obtained Sz 
Rama and other tales printed in early numbers of this journal; 
and from his lips I took down a far longer versior full of 
metrical passages. Mr. A. J. Sturrock and I myself edited this 
fuller version, using such parts of the present manuscript sa 
coincided with Pawang Ana’s tale; for, since between the 
metrical passages, Malay folk-tiales are couched in colloquial 
prose, this borrowing in no way violated the character of 
Pawang Ana’s version, and saved our having certain parts of 
it done again into literary Malay. As the printed examples 
of Malay folk-tales are so few in number, and as so few 
people have ever heard a Malay rhapsodist or know the 
methods of his art, it seems worth while printing this the 
shorter and variant version in full, differing as it does in names 
of places and characters and in the conclusion of the tale; 
and curtailed as it isin plot. A comparison of the synopsis 
of this version with the synopsis of the longer version 
will show most of the points of difference. I am again 
indebted to Mr. Hale for permission to use and print his 
manuscript. * 
Jour. Straits Branch, R. A. Soc., No. 51, 1908. 
