Week 5 Reading Diary: Twenty-Two Goblins

For this weeks reading I chose from the India Unit Twenty-Two Goblins!  Listed Below are some of my favorite sections from the reading this week. Unfortunately because I have chosen to read another tale from the India Unit I have effectively left out the Middle-East Unit. While I wish I could do both I am still just so infatuated with the India Unit and Buddha Tales that I had to stick with it. Plus I can always go back and read the Middle-East Unit on my own!

The King and The Goblin

Reading A: 

Goblins: Brave, Wise, Clever: These stories are starting out very uniquely. I think the whole idea is interesting and I am excited to see what the conclusion of these stories are! I choose Goblins: Brave, Wise, Clever because I could really draw a connection to the tale of the Deathly Hallows! Being a big Harry Potter fan I really loved to see this connection. So this story is about the King who is trying to bring a goblin, that has taken over a dead body to a monk. The king has promised to do this. While the king is carrying the body the goblin tells a story and at the end of the story the King is forced to answer the riddle, of sorts. If the king answers correctly the Goblin will return to the tree the king found him at and the king will have to start his journey over again. If the king answers knowingly incorrectly then his head will explode. I think these are excellent stories!

Goblins: The Three Delicate Wives: Wow! What a quirky story. So this story begins at a distant land where there is a king with three wives. Already contrary to the so called “normative” culture of America, but that is a little ethnocentric of me... anyways the story continues with the king visiting each of his wives. When he saw his first wife a lotus flower landed in her and she was severely bruised by this instance. The second wife was lying in bed with the King and when the moonlight shone on her skin she was severely burned! Crazy, I know Right! It gets better. The Third wife is walking down a corridor an hears the pestles and the sound alone gave her bruises. OMG IKR?! So that is the story, of the three delicate wives and when the Goblin asked the King who was the most delicate the King answered The one who was bruised by the sound of pestles for she was the only one that was hurt by something that was not physical.  

Reading B: 

Goblins: Father and Son, Daughter and Mother: What an amazing little story. I loved the ending to this one. It starts out as all the rest of the tales. The king takes the body infested with the Goblin and carries it to the monk. On his way to the monk the Goblin tells the King a story at the end he has a riddle. In this story a Queen and her daughter are traveling in the woods. Without a husband the Queen and daughter fend for themselves and hide from robbers. A father and son are in the woods hunting when they come upon footprints. A small set and a large set. The men agree when they find the women the Son shall have the person with the small footprints and the Father shall have the women with the large set. When they find the women they ultimately marry them, but as a twist the daughter actually has bigger feet then the queen. So sticking to the agreement the Father marries the daughter and the Son marries the Mother! Pretty Funny. So the Question is What are the relation of these two couples offsprings? The King caring the goblin was stumped. The goblin let the king in on a secret. The monk was going to kill the king to get magical powers! Page Turner indeed!

Conclusion: Okay. So the monk is killed by the King because the Goblin told the King the sham Monks plans to become King of the Fairies. For this the God Shiva rewards the King by promising him the world and giving him a magic sword where while he has it everything comes true!