Essay Week 5: India Mythology

This week I read Twenty-Two Goblins from the India Reading Unit in the Mythology-Folklore Un-Textbook. I thought this reading was super fun! I loved the India Unit of the Un-Textbook and found both the readings I did from this section to be the best readings thus far! I can definitely see why someone would want to read India Epics forever! In the Twenty-Two Goblins Unit I definitely had some favorite tales which you can see here. I really enjoyed the layout and the style of this unit. The idea that this king would go back again and again to get the body and bring it to the priest was really cool. I though the goblin character was also really interesting in his character development. In this reading unit there was some very strange stories. One of my favorites was the Three Delicate Wives who were bruised by a flower petal, burned by the moon beam and hurt by the sound of a pestle; very interesting reads! Overall I really enjoyed this reading and I think it would be hard to improve on it. Going into this reading unit it was exactly as I expected it to be from the synopsis, but at the same time it was so much more (like I was saying the back story in this unit was very poetic).

Shiva Statue, Bangalore

Another thing I was very impressed with in the Twenty-Two Goblins Tales Unit was its shortness. It took me almost no time at all to read the unit! I think the stories themselves were a little longer than average, but this made it possible for fewer stories and I think made the unit an easier read. Plus, because the actual stories were longer they had more detail in them and that just adds to the fun! I was very impressed with the readings and I am so glad that I was able to read this as a part of my Mythology and Folklore Course. This is definitely a unit that I would not want to see disappear!

Week 5 Storytelling: The Perfect Match

Once upon a time in a very large and prestigious kingdom live three mighty men. Each one of the men possessed a quality that challenged even the greatest men in the kingdom. The queen who had just turned fourteen was in search of a suitor. Her father had passed away when she was a child and her mother had recently died from the bubonic plague leaving her two children with out parents or relatives. This made the eldest daughter the Queen of the kingdom and the youngest daughter princess. The royal council gave the queen two months from her coronation to find a husband. So the queen set out on her mission to find true love and find herself a husband.

The queen called a kingdom wide competition for her hand in marriage. She staged the competition to be the most competitive competition the world had seen and to demonstrate the talents she thought would lead to the perfect husband. These talents would be demonstrated by two different events and each event would be taking place on a different day.

The first event she choose was a test to demonstrate strength, for only a man with strength would be able have her hand in marriage. To test strength the queen set up a quiz. Whom ever had the highest score on the quiz would win this challenge. The men competing were perplexed.

“What is the purpose of a quiz?” They questioned the queen, “This does not demonstrate our strength... we should be lifting stones are fighting each other.”

“I am not interested in your physical strength.” The queen responded. “I am looking for a husband who has strength of mind; for only someone with a strong mind will be able to hold my attention for life.”

Irritated by the queen’s deception the men agreed to take the quiz. They took their seats in a great reading hall and began their test of strength. Before they began the queen was curious about how the men would test against her own strength of mind so she too took the exam, but in secrecy. When they finished the exams were scored and the winner of the event was sealed in an envelope and would not be announced until the final day. The next day the second event began at noon. The event was to take place in a large open field outside the castle gates. When the sun was highest in the sky the competitors lined up to take their positions in the field. In front of each of them men sat a five foot rope and an egg. The queen arrived on horse back and looked at the men.

Empress Elizabeth of Austria

“This is an event of endurance. If you are to have my hand in marriage then you must be able to demonstrate both patience and endurance. For this event you will hold each end of the rope in each or your hands. I will come and place the egg in the center of the rope and the man who can balance the egg the longest on the rope shall be the winner of the competition!”

The men began the challenge, but no winner was declared. None of the men were able to hold the egg longer than a second after the queen placed the egg on the rope.

“This is an outrage, no one would be able to complete this task!” The men exclaimed!

The queen upon her horse took the rope in her hands and asked her maiden to place the egg as she had upon the rope. For twelve hours the queen rode around the castle with the egg in perfect balance.

 When the time came to announce who would have the hand of the queen and become the king of the kingdom the queen stood up in front of her loyal subjects and announced the winner of the competition.

~ ~ ~

Who was the winner of the competition?

~ ~ ~

The queen announce that she had won the competition and would not be married to any of the men. She was the perfect match for herself. 

Her sister on the other hand choose to marry the strongest women in the kingdom because that is what she was attracted too. Go figure. 

The Three Delicate Wives: So I was originally inspired by the story of the Three Delicate Wives as described below, but I ended up adding many more elements to the story. Once I really got started writing I enjoyed the story to much and didn’t want to limit it to the one story. I would like to think of the final product as a nice mixture of many of the stories from this unit. 

This story begins at a distant land where there is a king with three wives. When the king saw his first wife a lotus flower landed in her and she was severely bruised by this instantly. 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.  

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!