Reading notes: Week 2

Origin Stories

The Man in the Moon (Laos) (Laos Folk-Lore by Katherine Neville Fleeson)

Blacksmith can't make up his mind. Asks to be a stone, a stone cutter, the sun, and ends up stuck as the moon.

The Hare that was not Afraid to Die (Buddhist) (Eastern Stories and Legends by Marie L. Shedlock (1920))

Before he was born as a human, the Buddha was a rabbit. Monkey, Jackal, and Otter are his friends.

Buddha tells his friends to fast and give food to beggars. Otter and Jackal steal food, but do not eat it. Monkey picks mangoes, but doesn't eat them. Buddha decides to allow anyone who asks for food to eat him. 

Sakka, the King of Gods, disguises himself and tests the Buddha. Buddha responds to his request for food by telling him to build a fire. Buddha then jumps into the fire, which he discovers to be an illusion. Sakka is impressed by the Buddha's willingness to die, and paints the Buddha's likeness on the moon to commemorate it.

The Hare in the Moon Source

The Divine

The Eight-Forked Serpent of Koshi (Japan) (Romance of Old Japan, Part I: Mythology and Legend by E. W. Champney and F. Champney (1917))

Susa-no-wo sees chopstick in the river, follows the river upstream to find the people who used it. He finds an elderly couple and a young woman. Old man introduces the group as Ashinadzuchi (him), Tenadzuchi (his wife), and Kushinada-hime (their daughter). They are sad because an eight-headed monster has eaten their eight daughters, and will be back soon to eat Kushinada-hime. He says the monster is as big as eight valleys and eight mountains. Susa-no-wo offers to kill the monster in exchange for getting Kushinada-hime's hand in marriage. Ashinadzuchi is hesitant, so Susa-no-wo says he is the brother of the goddess Amaterasu. Ashinadzuchi consents to the arrangement.

Susa-no-wo turns Kushinada-hime into a hair comb. He asks Tenadzuchi to make a batch of sake of eightfold strength while be builds a structure with eight doors. Behind each door, he places a vat full of the sake. He then waits for the monster, which eventually arrives and gets drunk on the sake, which causes it to fall asleep. Susa-no-wo draws his sword and cuts the monster into a thousand pieces. Inside the tail of the monster, he finds a magical sword, which he delivers to the God of Heaven. He then marries Kushinada-hime.

The Supernatural

The Indian who Wrestled with a Ghost (from the Teton Lakota) (Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Katharine Berry Judson (1913))

A man is walking through the woods when he meets an owl. He falls asleep at the edge of the forest and wakes up to a woman screaming about her son. He lies still, watching through a hole in his blanket as the woman arrives at his camp. He plays dead as she tries to wake him, but when she pulls out a knife and tries to cut his foot, he jumps up and yells at her. She runs away. He lies back down and doesn't sleep.

In the morning, he sees a burial scaffold and thinks the woman was the ghost from the scaffold.

The next night, he makes camp by another forest. A traveler comes by and asks the man for some food. After he eats it, the man realizes that the traveler is in fact a skeleton. The skeleton challenges the man to wrestle, promising that, if the man wins, he will defeat his enemy and steal horses. The man builds up his fire before starting the wrestling. The skeleton becomes weak near the fire, and the man finally wins by pushing him into the fire as the sun rises. The skeleton's promise comes true, and the man defeats his enemy and steals some horses.

Metamorphosis

Pygmalion (Ancient Greece) (Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Tony Kline (2000))

Pygmalion sculpts a woman, who he falls in love with. He brings it presents and cuddles it. On Venus's festival day, he prays to her and wishes that his could have his ivory girl as a bride. He comes home and, when he touches the statue, she turns into a real woman. The two get married and have a child.

Tricksters

The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal (India) (Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1912))

A tiger is trapped in a cage. He asks a passing Brahman to let him out, promising not to eat him afterward. When the tiger is let out of the cage, he goes against his word and tries to eat the Brahman. After much pleading from the Brahman, the tiger agrees to not eat him if the first three things the Brahman asks take the Brahman's side.

First, the Brahman asks a pipal-tree, which has no sympathy and tells him to "be a man". He then finds a buffalo turning a well-wheel, who tells the Brahman that he was a fool to expect gratitude. He finally asks the road he stands on, and the road laments that it is useful to everyone and yet gets no thanks, and it thus has no sympathy for the Brahman.

The Brahman runs into a jackal as he walks back to the tiger, who asks to hear the story. The Brahman retells it several times, and the jackal repeatedly claims to have not heard the story, could the Brahman please tell it again? The Brahman eventually takes the jackal back with him to the tiger, and asks the tiger to allow him to tell the jackal the story just one more time. The tiger agrees, and the Brahman tells the story again, drawing it out as long as he can. The jackal once again pretend to be confused, asking the tiger how he got in the cage. The jackal pretends not to understand, and the tiger, fed up, jumps back into the cage. The jackal shuts the door, once again trapping the tiger in the cage again.

Fables

The Lion (Aesop) (The Fables of Aesop by Joseph Jacobs (1894))

The Lion's Share

The Lion, the Jackal, the Fox, and the Wolf go hunting together, and manage to kill a stag. The Lion tells the other three to quarter it, and then claims all four parts for various reasons. The fox is irritated.

Androcles and the Lion

Androcles, a slave, flees into the forest, where he finds an injured lion. The lion has a large thorn in its paw. Androcles removes the thorn, and the lion takes Androcles back to his cave and brings him food. The two are recaptured, and Androcles is sentenced to be fed to the lion. The lion, though starving, doesn't attack Androcles, but merely licks his hand. Androcles explains the story to the Emperor, who lets both Androcles and the lion go free. (Note: Lions don't live in the forest)

The Lion and the Statue

A Lion claims that a man cannot use a statue as proof that humans are stronger than lions, because a human made the statue.

The Lion in Love

A lion proposes to a young woman. Her parents say the lion needs to be de-clawed and have his teeth removed first. He does this, but the parents once again tell him no, and tell him to do his worst.

Fairy Tale

The Three Roses (Czech) (The Key of Gold by Josef Baudis (1922))

A mother goes to market with shopping lists from her three daughters. Two of them ask for many things; the third asks for three roses. She gets lost on the way home and happens upon a palace, where she picks three roses for her daughter. After picking the roses, she is confronted by a basilisk, who demands her daughter in exchange for the roses. The mother arrives home and tells her daughter, who agrees to the basilisk's demands and goes to the castle.

After arriving at the castle, the basilisk demands that the girl nurse him every day. On the third day, he brings a sword and tells her to cut his head off. She resists, but he insists, and she does, releasing a serpent. The serpent asks for her to cut its head off as well, which she does, and the serpent changes into a young man, who then marries her.