Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Reading Notes: Twenty-Two Goblins, Part B

Goblins: The Snake's Poison
Swami - swami son with wife named Beauty

Conflict! 

That's some pretty perfect description - like the mourning of a dead partner.

It took him days? He was so grief stricken, you would think he'd jump instantly at the chance to find his wife.

Uh oh.. poor Hariswami.. 

"If you know and do not tell the truth" - seems really odd to me. What reason would the king have for lying? He knows he has to play the goblin's game to get him to come with him. This line just seemed weird to me.

Goblins: The Girl and the Thief

Merchant - Jewel, Wife - Pleasing, Daughter - Pearl

It seems like all the daughters/wives in these stories turn out to be beautiful.

Clever king - but he sounds like he is about to meet some dangerous company. 

Did he really think the thief did not recognize him? He is the king after all.

What? Pearl, no! 

The people in these stories really like to self-sacrifice.

Oh, well goody! All it took for the thief to be a good person was divine intervention.

These riddles are getting lame. It seems like any answer will do, as long as you can somewhat justify it.

Goblins: The General's Wife


There are a lot of king stories.

How kind of him. He wouldn't want to make all those women lovesick.

Wow, he is very committed to ruling his kingdom virtuously. It's too bad, because he might end up alone because of it.

I like the king's answer a lot, actually. Though he kind of underplayed the role of the general, I guess it could be the fact that social norms were different back then. Maybe his servitude was ordinary. However, it is pretty tough to have power and not abuse it, so good on the king as well.


Ahilya Ghat by the Ganges, 
Goblins: The Four Brothers

Wow, I never even considered how old hanging/suicide might be. I wonder who was the first person to die that way?

Why are the younger brothers so wise? 

Ah yes, brothers learning different sciences. This is just like the reading yesterday. 

Where are they learning such crazy "sciences"? Story idea; make more crazy sciences for some brothers or sisters to learn!

What? How could the brother who put the hair/flesh on not know it was a lion? Was it done blindly or something? How skilled were they in this science? I don't like this story.

Goblins: The Old Hermit

That story was just kind of weird. Is the king actually going to die? I didn't think he was actually afraid of the goblin's magic until the end of this story.

Goblins: Father and Son, Daughter and Mother
The description has changed. I feel that something different is about to happen, and it doesn't look good for the king.

"if your faces lose their beauty we won't want to be marry you anymore" - the way that men speak to women in these stories weirds me out!

It doesn't seem like that big of deal for them to switch their original agreement. It's not like it was a business contract, and it makes more sense for the young to marry each other.

Is it not an impossible puzzle? Each of the children would have multiple relations, depending on how you trace it.

Goblins: Conclusion

Yay, happy ending! I rather enjoyed these stories, there's a lot of similarities to them, but some of them were really enjoyable. 

Bibliography: Twenty-two Goblins, translated by Arthur W. Ryder. Source.

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