Week 11: Bidpai Reading Unit (Essay)

For this week, I read the Tales of Bidpai unit from the Un-textbook. I really enjoyed this unit and thought all of the stories were fun to read. The stories were all diverse and all of them were interesting. I personally like when the un-textbook stories are only a page or two long, so I thought this one was great since none of the stories went over a page.

This was the first unit I had read in this class or the Mythology Folklore class that had some pages with multiple, extremely short stories  one one page. I thought this was great because i was such a different set up from many of the long stories we read, especially with the epics in this class. I also thought they were grouped very well, for example, having multiple stories on a page that all focus on apes. 

I also don't think I'd read a unit for either class that had an introduction quite like this one, but I really liked it. I liked how it set up the original scribe of the book of stories, almost as a myth himself. I thought that this was a great way to begin a storybook like this. The talking about the libraries of the king and the amount of knowledge there, was amazing. When reading it it made me think of the Library of Alexandria. 

There were many stories I liked, including the Two Travelers, however I talked a lot about that one in my first reading diary and my storytelling assignment, so I won't talk much about that one here. I also liked the King, Hermit, and Two Princes story. I thought this was a great story to show the moral of no living above your means, saving your money, and not relying on other people to bail you out of debt or bad situations in general that you get yourself into. The story was very similar to modern day versions that are in movies and TV shows where the trust fund kids are cut off and party away all of their money before they realize it. 

I liked this reading unit a lot and would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for something a little different. I have loved reading the epics this semester but it is nice to read stories that are a little simpler sometimes and this unit was great to do that.

(Bidpai and the king, from the
Arabic Kalila-wa-Dimna)

Story source: The Tortoise and the Geese and Other Fables of Bidpai by Maude Barrows Dutton, with illustrations by E. Boyd Smith, 1908.

Week 11: Two Travelers and a Dare (Storytelling)

“Let’s stop here for a rest,” Salem said. He and his friend Ganem were far away from home, traveling to find work and wealth.

This place had trees dotted around, offering shade from the high sun. A fast running stream was to their left with plenty of fresh, cool water. The thick, green grass gave a comfortable place for the two men to rest before they resumed their journey.

After they sat, Salem went to work pulling food out of their bags. Ganem took some bowls and went to the stream. Not long after, Ganem returned without the water.

“You’ll never guess what I found, Salem.” His eyes danced and he kept fidgeting, unable to contain his glee.

Salem watched his friend calmly. “Obviously not water. What happened?” The men had often been through this routine together. Ganem was easily excited and always came up with great schemes to get them rich. Well, Ganem always thought they were great schemes. So far, none of his hundreds of ideas have become anything. Salem on the other hand was much more practical and rarely got as excited as his friend.

Ganem shouted, “You’re going to love this! There was some writing on a boulder by the river. It said that there is a city on top of that mountain,” Ganem pointed to the closest mountain on the other side of the stream. “And there is wealth and food and whatever else we want there.”

Salem looked at his friend skeptically. “There are not towns or even villages on the map, Ganem. The closest thing is a farm a few miles from here. And even if there was a city, I don’t think they just let anyone come up and take their wealth.”

“Of course they wouldn’t give it to just anyone.” Ganem rolled his eyes at Salem’s hesitation. Salem was always too cautious with new adventures. “There are tests you have to go through. You have to swim through the stream, then pick up a lion statue, then run up the mountain with the lion statue. They want you to prove your bravery and strength.”

Salem raised his eyebrows. “First of all,” he said, “that river has a fast current. If you didn’t die, you’d be lucky. And I saw that lion statue when we were getting settled. It’s huge. There’s no way you could carry that thing up a mountain. It’s probably a prank. If there was some huge wealthy city, I think it’d be on the map and those tasks just sound deadly. That would be stupid, not brave.”

Ganem quit pacing and looked between his friend and the stream. “Fine,” he said. “You don’t have to do it, but I am. I’m going to find that city and become rich.”

With that, Ganem strode purposefully towards the stream, Salem close at his heels. When they approached, Ganem took off his shirt and jumped in. Salem watched anxiously as his friend struggled in the current. As he had said, the current kept pulling Ganem under and downstream.

Salem grabbed a rope from his bag, ready in case Ganem called out. He followed along on the bank as his friend continued. Almost half an hour later, Ganem crawled, exhausted, onto the other bank. He shook and coughed up water.

After resting enough to stand up, he slowly trudged back towards the lion. Ganem was already weak from his fight across the river, but even on his best day, the lion was impossibly heavy. The statue barely budged when he tried to scoot it, much less pick it up.

In defeat and exhaustion, he sat up against the lion statue. He could feel Salem watching him from the other side.

“Okay,” he called. “You were right! But I can’t make it back across the river.”

“When you’ve rested up, I’ll throw you the rope and help pull you across.” The men sat on opposite bands for hours before Ganem was finally ready. When they were both together again, they continued on their journey, slower than before as Ganem was still exhausted.

That evening they reached the nearby farm. The farmer invited the travelers to stay for dinner. Salem asked about the inscription on the boulder up stream and the farmer laughed.

“Oh, that was my boy,” he said lightly. “He just got good at writing and he wrote that yesterday. I figured it wasn’t a big deal; it’ll wear off with the first rainstorm. And who would actually think they could swim across a stream like that and pick up a huge statue?”

Salem smiled a little and glanced at his friend who did not find the child’s prank amusing.

Stone Lion Statue. Pixabay

Author's Note: This story was from the Bidpai Fables unit of the Un-Textbook. The original story was called the Two Travelers.

The original story was about two travelers who come across an inscription by a stream. The inscription tells them to do seemingly impossible tasks and if they do, they will be given all the wealth they could want. One man thinks it's a joke, because the tasks are so impossible, and he leaves. But the other thinks it's a test for bravery, and he sets upon doing he tasks. The tasks he must accomplish are swimming across a fast stream, carrying a stone lion up a mountain through thorns and wild animals until he reaches the top. He accomplishes the task and is made king of the city atop the mountain. 

While I was reading this story, I thought the moral could have gone one of two ways: brave men get money and glory and wealth, or practical men don't die. I figured, based on the stories and epics we read, that the moral would be the first. However, if I came across this same situation, I would have responded the same way as the man saying it was impossible, so I decided to switch the morals of the story to where that man ended up being right. 

So I changed the end of the story by having the brave man unable to perform the tasks and changed it to where the inscription was a prank by a child. I also had the man who didn't try the tasks stay with his friend and in the end help him back across after he almost dies in the river the first time. 

Story source: The Tortoise and the Geese and Other Fables of Bidpai by Maude Barrows Dutton, with illustrations by E. Boyd Smith, 1908.

Week 11: Bidpai Fables (Reading Diary B)

Once again, for this week I read the Fables of Bidpai reading unit from the un-textbook. From the second half of this unit, the main story I'm going to talk about is the Camel Driver and the Adder.

The Camel Driver and the Adder reminds me of a story that I think I read in Laura's mythology and folklore class (I can't remember what unit it was in) about a genie who is saved from the ocean by a fisherman. As soon as he fisherman finds and releases he genie, the genie says that he is going to kill the fisherman. The fisherman tries to convince the genie to reconsider and go on his way, but the genie refuses. In the end, the genie is tricked back into his jar (I think i was a jar) like the fox tricked the adder in this story, and thrown back into the sea.

While these two stories were very similar, I liked the Camel Driver and the Adder story more because of it's connection to how humans treat the world around them. Unlike with the genie, who just decided that he would kill the person who found him, the adder had his ideas about how the world worked from seeing how humans treated others. Because of this idea, he logically decided that if humans would harm animals that helped them, they couldn't be trusted and he should do the same. While it is extremely ungrateful and the Camel driver was right to trap the snake again, there was a least a reason for he snake to do what he did and also let the moral of the story be to treat everything and everyone that helps you kindly and fairly.

Loch Shin Adder. Wikimedia

Week 11: Bidpai Fables (Reading Diary A)

For this week I chose to read the Fables of  Bidpai reading unit from the un-textbook. From the first half of the readings, my favorite story was the Two Travelers. There were many great stories from this unit, but this one was the one that I liked the most.

The Tale of Two Traveler's story I really liked because I had never read anything like it before. I know for sure, that if I was in a situation like these two friends came across have responded exactly like Salem. Ganem was so excited for a chance to do something that was brave and exciting, but Salem thought much more practically about the situation. I was convinced that Ganem was going to die in his trials and his feast would have been in some type of an afterlife.

The tasks of swimming across a strong stream then carrying a stone lion quickly up a hill would not be something that I would ever attempt because it seems reckless and stupid. There's the old saying that there's a thin line between stupidity and bravery, and I think that was shown in this story. In the end Salem misses out because of his realistic view and Ganem becomes a wealthy king because of his bravery in completing the tasks.

I personally would love a version of this where he moral is changed from "be stupidly brave and you could become a king" to "be practical and don't die in a river or crushed by a stone lion". That may be my storytelling assignment this week.

stone lion statue. Pixabay.