Reading Diary B: Indian Fairy Tales

Here are my favorite stories from the second half of the Indian Fairy Tales reading unit:

The Talkative Tortoise: I thought this story was very funny. The main conflict of the plot is humorous: the king talks too much and his adviser doesn't know how to tell him so or teach him a lesson. Thankfully (and comically), a tortoise who also talks too much lands dead in the courtyard of the palace, a victim of his own inability to stop talking. And ta-da! Lesson learned for the king, the lesson being "if you talk too much, bad things will happen to you!" Besides the death of the tortoise, this seems very much like a children's cautionary tale: "Don't bother your mom by talking too much all the time or you might end up like the tortoise."

The Gold-Giving Serpent: This story reminds me of an Aesop tale, The Man and the Serpent. In both stories, a man wishes to reconcile with a snake after his son has done the snake harm and the snake killed the man's son. The man comes to the snake to try to make amends, but the snake says that they can't be friends anymore. I can't decide if the snake is showing wisdom or stubbornness. It is true that it is hard to forgive and forget, but the man seems to have done so and when, I believe, he was the more injured party (the snake killed his son!). While you probably can't go back to the way things were before you hurt each other, you could at least be able to be civil to one another.

Why the Fish Laughed: This story was a bit long but actually quite interesting. At first, you don't really understand what is going on. You don't know why the fish laughed and you don't really understand the vazier's son's odd sayings either. However, once you meet the farmer's daughter and she explains everything, things begin to make sense. I think the test to figure out which maid is actually a man is a tad sexist. "Men are better athletes so if a maid can jump over this ditch then she must actually be a man." So because women are weaker than men, they aren't as good of athletes? Why didn't they just check each one for, you know, sings of being a man? What if they killed an innocent women simply because she could jump really far??

How Sun, Moon, and Wind Went Out to Dinner: I liked this story because it was very different from all the others. However, I'm not so sure I agree with its logic. Mother Star punishes the (son?) Sun by making its rays hot and people dislike it. I, personally, like the sun even when it is unbelievably hot outside. I'd much rather be really hot than freezing cold (like it is now), but this is just my personal preference. I don't live in Indian where the sun might be a good deal more punishing than it is even here in Oklahoma. She punishes the Wind by making it blow while it's hot and making people dislike it, too. Where we live, though, the wind is greatly appreciated in the summer because it usually provides a cool reprieve from the hot sun (but sometimes blows waaay too hard). Again, the conditions may be different in Indian where the wind might not be a cool breeze. Finally, Mother Star rewards the Moon (who brought her back food unlike the other two selfish beings) by putting her in the night sky to be "beloved." I don't really like nor dislike the moon. It is nice that it keeps the world from being totally dark at night, though.

The sun, the moon, and the wind at dinner
(John Batten)