Week 12: Khasi Folktales B (Extra Reading Diary)

For the extra reading diary assignment this week, I read the second half of the Khasi Folktales unit. 

The two stories that I liked the most from this half of the reading unit are the one's I'll talk about here. The first is the story of What Caused the Shadows in the Moon and the second is the story of How Cats Came to Live with Man.

One of the main reasons I liked the moon story is because earlier this week in the Indian Fairy Tales Unit, I read a different version of why the moon has a softer, more shadowy light and the two stories couldn't have been more different. 

In this story, the moon used to be as bright and brilliant as the sun, but because he didn't listen to his mother and disrespected his sister, the sun, he was burned, leaving him dimmer and scarred than he was before.  This is a much more depressing story than the one in the Indian Fairy Tales unit, where the moon was the only child to help her mother, so she was blessed with soft, beautiful light, where the sun was cursed to be harsh blinding. I personally like the Indian Fairy Tale version more, but I did like how this version also explained the shadows and markings that we can see on the moon.

Full Moon by Gregory H. Revera. Wikimedia.

I also thought that the story about how the cat came to live with humans was really cute and different from many of the other similar folktales. First I thought it was cool that they talked about how the cats were related to the tigers, and how the cats began hunting small animals because the tiger wouldn't share his food. I thought the story was really cute how the cat had been so abused by her family, especially the tiger, but when she went to the humans, she was welcomed and loved and played with. After that, she didn't take any more abuse from her brother and she began living with the humans permanently.

By Payman Sazesh. Wikimedia

Week 12: Indian Fairy Tales (Reading Diary B)

As I said in the first reading dairy, this week I read the Indian Fairy Tales unit from the Un-textbook.

The two stories I'm going to talk about in this reading are Pride Goeth Before the Fall and How Sun, Moon, and Wind Went Out to Dinner.

The Pride Goeth Before the Fall story was different than any other story I have read so far and I thought it was a fun one to read. When I began the story, I thought it was going to be about someone coming and helping the traders after they were robbed but I loved that it was different and featured the traders rallying together and taking back control from the thieves. This was particularly impressive because the traders had lost everything, including most of their clothes, and took out the robbers. I liked that ending of the story included that after this the traders always armed themselves and their friends loved hearing the retelling of their fight with thieves. 

I liked the story of How Sun, Moon, and Wind Went Out to Dinner. I've always liked reading myths or folklore that explain why the earth or life is the way it is, particularly when the elements are personified. I thought that this story did a great job showing how the sun and wind were cursed to be harsh while the moon's glow is soft and gentle. I liked the way the writer told the story of this family of elements and how it gave an origin for things in everyday life. 

Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1912).

Week 12: Indian Fairy Tales (Reading Diary A)

For this week, I read the Indian Fairy Tales unit of the Un-Textbook.

The first story I'm going to talk about in this diary is the story of Harisarman, which was my favorite from this unit. The second story I'm going to briefly touch on is the Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal. 

I thought the story of Harisarman was really entertaining and fun to read. Stories about men like Harisarman who always get ahead by lying and getting really lucky are so different than most stories, but at the same time there are many stories like that (i.e. the story from the Myth-Folklore class about the archer who lied about his accomplishments but ended up accidentally scaring off an army, giving him even more fame and glory).

The Harisarman story was one of the best of these types of stories that I've read. I liked how the first time, his deceit was so well planned out but the next two, which cemented his power and wealth, were complete accidents. On both of the two occasions, the solution practically fell to him from the sky and his luck continued. Really, how many girls in India are named "tongue"? Stories like this are really fun to read because you can see the pieces coming together before and in the end, everyone usually lives happily as long as their luck holds out.

Storybook illustrations by John D. Batten

The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal was very much like the story from the Bidpai Folktales Unit, which I discussed in depth in the Week 11 Reading Diary B. However, I waned to mention the Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal because it was so similar but I loved the few differences in his story from the last I discussed. 

In other similar stories, the animal or creature trying to kill the person who saved them is tricked back into he cage by something, and usually quite quickly, but I thought this one was so much better because of the confusion the jackal caused in the tiger by pretending to be completely stupid and not mentally stable. I thought the tiger's furied response was so much better than just trying to prove he was locked up. Instead he was trying everything in his power to make, what he though, was an incredibly stupid creature understand a simple situation.