The Story of Batu Langlelo, or Langlelo Stone: A Sumbawa Folktale

Sumbawa is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken in the western part of Sumbawa Island, located in eastern Indonesia. This article presents a Sumbawa folktale associated with a stone called the Langlelo Stone. The plot begins with a scene of hungry children waiting for their mother to prepare food, a motif widely observed in Maritime Southeast Asian folklore. Suddenly, the stone on which the children are sitting rises so high that the mother is unable to deliver food to them. In this difficult situation, a pair of quails chant a peculiar spell, successfully lowering the stone. The children’s voices calling for food and the quails’ spell are expressed through the teller’s song, adding an entertaining element to the story.