Philippine literature is the literature associated with the Philippines and includes the legends of

prehistory, and the colonial legacy of the Philippines, written in both Indigenous, and Hispanic
languages. Most of the notable literature of the Philippines was written during the Spanish
period. Philippine literature is written in Spanish, Tagalog, English, and other native Philippine
languages.

Colonial literature (or "Post-colonial literature", sometimes called "New English literature(s)"),
is a body of literary writings that reacts to the discourse of colonization. Post-colonial literature
often involves writings that deal with issues of de-colonization or the political and cultural
independence of people formerly subjugated to colonial rule. It is also a literary critique to texts
that carry racist or colonial undertones. Postcolonial literature, finally in its most recent form,
also attempts to critique the contemporary postcolonial discourse that has been shaped over
recent times. It attempts to re-read this very emergence of postcolonialism and its literary
expression itself.

Postcolonial literary critics re-examine classical literature with a particular focus on the social
"discourse" that shaped it. Edward Said in his popular work Orientalism analyzes the writings of
Honoré de Balzac, Charles Baudelaire and Lautréamont, exploring how they were influenced,
and how they helped to shape a societal fantasy of European racial superiority. Postcolonial
fiction writers might interact with the traditional colonial discourse by attempting to modify or
subvert it. An example of this is Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), which was written as a
pseudo-prequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. Here, a familiar story is re-told from the
perspective of an oppressed minor character. Protagonists in post-colonial writings are often
found to be struggling with questions of identity, experiencing the conflict of living between the
old, native world and the invasive forces of hegemony from new, dominant cultures.

Postcolonial literature works through the process of "writing back", "re-writing", and "re-
reading". This describes the interpretation of well-known literature from the perspective of the
formerly colonized. In Wide Sargasso Sea, the protagonist is shown to be re-named and
exploited in several ways.

The "anti-conquest narrative" recasts indigenous inhabitants of colonised countries as victims

rather than foes of the colonisers. This depicts the colonised people in a more human light but
risks absolving colonisers of responsibility for addressing the impacts of colonisation by
assuming that native inhabitants were "doomed" to their fate.

Riddles are expression in rhymes using one or two images that refer to a particular thing or
object that has to be guess. Riddles are used for entertainment, mental exercises and amusement.
Riddles are use by Filipinos to pass away time and to show their wit . . . it is entertaining and
fun.

Filipino riddles deal largely with animals, plants and objects of local character. Filipino riddles
have been passed from one generation to another and their origins have never been trace, a lot of
new riddles have also been created by the younger generation.
Let's try if you can answer some of the riddles below. The following riddles are translated
literally in English for non-Filipino readers.

The term mythology can refer to either the study of myths, or to a body of myths. For example,
comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures,
whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece. The term "myth" is often
used colloquially to refer to a false story, but academic use of the term generally does not pass
judgment on truth or falsity. In the study of folklore, a myth is a sacred narrative explaining how
the world and humankind came to be in their present form. Many scholars in other fields use the
term "myth" in somewhat different ways. In a very broad sense, the word can refer to any
traditional story.

An epic is traditionally a genre of poetry, known as epic poetry. However in modern terms, epic
is often extended to other art forms, such as novels, theater and film, where the story is centered
on heroic characters, and the action takes place on a grand scale, just as in epic poetry. Epics in
this sense are majestic depictions that capture impressive struggles, such as stories of war,
adventures, and other efforts of great scope and size over long periods of time. The real life
stories of heroic figures have also been referred to as being epic. Examples of notable epics
include Ernest Shackleton's exploration adventures in Antarctica, historical novels such as War
and Peace.

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs,and customs
that are the traditions of that culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through
which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called folkloristics.
The word 'folklore' was first used by the English antiquarian William Thoms in a letter published
by the London Journal in 1846. In usage, there is a continuum between folklore and mythology.
Stith Thompson made a major attempt to index the motifs of both folklore and mythology,
providing an outline into which new motifs can be placed, and scholars can keep track of all
older motifs.

Folklore can be divided into four areas of study: artifact (such as voodoo dolls), describable and
transmissible entity (oral tradition), culture, and behavior (rituals). These areas do not stand
alone, however, as often a particular item or element may fit into more than one of these areas.

A legend (Latin, legenda, "things to be read") is a narrative of human actions that are perceived
both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities
that give the tale verisimilitude. Legend, for its active and passive participants includes no
happenings that are outside the realm of "possibility", defined by a highly flexible set of
parameters, which may include miracles that are perceived as actually having happened, within
the specific tradition of indoctrination where the legend arises, and within which it may be
transformed over time, in order to keep it fresh and vital, and realistic.

The Brothers Grimm defined legend as folktale historically grounded. A modern folklorist's
professional definition of legend was proposed by Timothy R. Tangherlini in 1990:
Legend, typically, is a short (mono-) episodic, traditional, highly ecotypified historicized
narrative performed in a conversational mode, reflecting on a psychological level a symbolic
representation of folk belief and collective experiences and serving as a reaffirmation of
commonly held values of the group to whose tradition it belongs."