Mythology & Folklore: Extra Reading Diary: Indian Fairy Tales

Indian Fairy Tales Half-Unit Reading

READING A:
1. The Lion and the Crane

This is a story about a lion who, while eating, got a bone stuck in his throat.
As a result, his throat became sore and he was suffering.
A crane decided to help him by pulling out the bone.
The crane wanted a reward for being so helpful, but the lion said the rewards was his life.
I feel like I may have read this story in one of my past reading diaries, but this story was more detailed
I think this story paints a very good picture of how being grateful, especially if someone goes out of their way to help you, is important in life. It builds relationships and in the future, if you ever need help again, they will surely be there for you.

To be quite honest, I don't think I like the message, if any, from this story
From what it looks like, there was a man who collected rice and hung a pot of it above his couch
He then started daydreaming about his "future riches" if he were to sell the rice, leading all the way up to him having a wife and a son
Then it just went downhill from there and he was thinking about kicking his wife??
He acted out that daydream and ended up kicking his rice pot instead and spilled all of it
The wife kicking part was not very appealing to me

Reading this story, I felt sorry for the "Bonga girl"
I'm not sure what Bonga means and I tried looking it up, but there was not much of an explanation
However, although it says that there was a "revenge" at the end, it didn't feel like there was much of a revenge in the plot
Was the revenge that she came back and married a chief?

I believe I have also read this story in one of my past reading diaries as well, but from another unit!
Here, a crane deceived an entire pond of fish by telling them he would bring them to a larger pond since the water in the one they were in is very low
It turns out that he was going to eat them instead
Once he finished off the last fish, he found a crab that he tried to trick, but the crab saw through it and killed the crane
I think I could definitely write a story about this if I ever were to decide to since there is so much material that I could use. This story is simple enough that my imagination can go wild, but it still has a moral that I can stick to.

In this story, a tiger got stuck in a cage and was freed by a brahman
the tiger ended up wanting to eat his savior and only granted him "a promise to abide by the decision of the first three things he chose to question as to the justice of the tiger's action."
all of the objects he questioned said that he should accept his fate
however, a jackal came along and tricked the tiger into getting stuck in the cage once again
I liked this story very much. I felt it was very clever, the jackal.

6. Harisarman

Harisarman was a poor man with many children
he worked for a wealthy family and decided to deceive them by saying that he possessed "knowledge of magic"
To be honest, this was based entirely on his luck
Nonetheless, I enjoyed this story. If only real life was like that.

Drawing of Harisarman.

there was a man who was given 300 rupees by his father to try becoming a merchant
he ended up using all of his money on buying a dog, cat, and a snake
as a result, his father disowned him
it turns out the snake was the son of a king and so the young man was rewarded for saving the snake's life
he obtained a right hand ring and a pot & spoon that would provide him eternal food
the right hand ring gave him a mansion and a wife
one day, the prince of a neighboring country happened to obtain the hair of the young man's wife and desired her to be his
so the father of the king hired an ogress to steal the wife
she did so and the young man was distressed his wife was gone. his cat and dog vowed to find her and bring her back in a month's time.

the cat elicited help from the rats to get the ring from the stomach of the ogress
the cat succeeded, but upon the journey to bring the ring back to their master, the dog kept dropping the ring
wow dog wow
eventually the cat, with its wit and kind of aggressive temper, got the ring back multiple times
the young man was eventually reunited with his wife

Mythology & Folklore