Reading Notes: Reading B: Twenty Jataka Tales

For the second part of the reading of Twenty Jataka Tales by Noor Inayat, again I found a story, The Sarabha that was similar to Banyan from the first part of the reading. Both stories have a magnificent deer that that helps a King learn a lesson, and then the King vows to not hunt any more creatures. It seems that both stories, the author thinks of a deer as the wise creature in the forest and reiterates the common saying when a King would decree that no one could hunt creatures in their forest. Because of how much the deer is brought up in these stories and a King, I think trying to create one that would seem to flow with the stories would be easiest. Another story that is familiar is The Goblin Town. In the story, she-goblins are transformed into beautiful women and try to allure sailors to stay with them so that they can eat them. One sailor learns the truth and tries to tell everyone. Only some of the sailors believe him, and those that do can escape with the help of a flying horse. In this version just, a voice from the sea sends the horse that helps the men but what if it was a she-goblin who did not want to eat her husband. What if she had fallen in love with a human and knew the only way she could save him was to let him find out their goblin secret so that she could send a flying horse to keep him safe. The third story I enjoyed reading was The Golden Goose. At first, I thought it was going to be similar to the story, The Golden Feathers that was in reading A but they were pretty different. In The Golden Feathers, a husband is turned into a golden goose so that he can help his low-income family but his wife becomes greedy and tries to take all of his golden feathers. But in The Golden Goose, even though a King is obsessed with a golden goose and his wisdom he does not try and keep him in the palace but allows him to live his life as distance friends. I think the comparison of the two stories shows the separation of people that are greedy for money in life to those that are respectful and understand limits of others. I think the story of The Golden Goose could be combined with The Golden Feathers where the wife learns from the goose and her daughter how to be respectful of the golden goose.

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Image: A goose with a golden-ish color. Source: Wikimedia Commons by Thelostrobot89

Reading Notes: Reading A: Twenty Jataka Tales

For this week I wanted to read some more of the Jataka Tales so I picked, Twenty Jataka Tales by Noor Inayat. There were ten stories to read and some of them were familiar tales while other were completely new. One of the familiar tales was the story, The Tortoise and the Geese. This story is about the turtle who cannot, not talk long enough for a pair of geese to fly him to a new better home, so he falls and dies. But what I liked in this story is they added a King at the end that learned a lesson. Most of the stories in this reading have a King that learns a valuable lesson from the animals in the story. I really liked this aspect and the added character of the King in the stories and want to find a way to incorporate this into my own story. The second story that I liked was, Banyan this story is very similar to a story that I had read and then rewrote about last semester (The Foolish Deer that Lost). The story of Banyan, is about two golden deer that are in charge of separate herds but the King ends up taking one deer from each herd to eat everyday. The two golden deers have the other deers take turns to see who is suppose to be killed for the day but on one day a doe of a little deer ask to have her turn later so that she can be with her baby for a little while longer. Banyan selflessly puts himself as the deer to be killed to save the doe but when the King sees that he says he will not kill any deer. However, the King goes on to say that he will not kill any creatures. I think this is a little far fetched and should be changed. I think it is great that the King learns a lesson but he went a little too far. The last story I really liked was the lesson from, The Young Parrot. The young parents goes out to eat rice every day but always comes back with rice in his mouth to feed his parents. I really like how the parrot even though he is considered the most beautiful parrot still thinks about his family. I would like to figure out a way to incorporate this lesson into my story I create. 

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Image: The King.  Source: pixabay by Clker-Free-Vector-Images

Week 10 Story: Crocodile Tears

Where did the phrase come from? 

This is the story of why we call insincere tears, "crocodile tears." It all started when a husband and wife crocodile were relaxing in the river under the shade of some fruit trees. The wife kept hearing a rustling above her, and the noise was making it hard for her to sleep. When she looked up, she saw a monkey looking through the tree for some fruit to eat. Angry that he had disturbed her slumber, she woke her husband.

"Honey, I cannot get any sleep with all of that noise. Make that monkey stop." The wife snapped at her husband.

The husband looked up and politely asked, "Sorry to bother you monkey, but my wife is trying to sleep could you try to keep it down?"

The monkey had not realized that there were two crocodiles underneath him. If he had seen them, he would have kept quiet. Genuinely sorry he told the crocodiles, "I am very sorry to have disturbed you two. I thought I was all alone. This tree seems to be out of fruit so I will be on my way."

Happy with how the monkey had responded the husband slowly shut his eyes and was soon fast asleep again. But the wife was not pleased. Why did her husband let the monkey get away? He had always been too caring for other animals. He tried to be a peacekeeper. She wished he would be ruthless. She loved to eat the hearts of monkeys and could not get that monkey's heart out of her mind.

She watched as the monkey leaped to another tree but as he did a branch fell to the ground. This gave the crocodile wife a nasty idea. She went and retrieved the stick and carefully placed it on her back. Then she began to make herself cry.

The husband awoke to the crocodile tears of his wife. Worried that something terrible must have happened to her, he asked her, "My dear, what is wrong? Tell me what you need to stop those sad tears."

The wife told him through floods of tears, "That monkey was mad you made him leave and threw a stick down at me. Why do monkeys have to be such mean animals."

Once the husband heard this, he was furious. He tried to comfort his wife telling her, "Dear please do not cry. I hate to see you cry. I will make that monkey pay." And off the husband swam, set out to kill the monkey that had made his wife cry and bring the heart back to her to show his love.

During this entire facade the crocodile wife had created, the monkey had been watching up in a new tree slight ways down. Even though he was not guilty, he knew he would have to convince the crocodile husband of his innocence.

When the crocodile husband found the monkey, he left the water and waited at the trunk of the tree. Even though the monkey tried to plead with the husband he would not believe that his wife had made everything up. The husband vowed to wait under the tree till the monkey would leave so he could kill him and give his monkey heart to his wife.

Unknown to everyone in the situation a wise lion had watched the entire scene while sunbathing on a rock in view of everything. Seeing the monkey was in great distress he decided to go down and help out. When the lion reached the tree, the crocodile quickly told him, "Do not try to help this monkey he was mean to my wife not once but twice. He must suffer the consequences of his actions!"

The wise lion yawned then laughed and said, "The only animal that needs to suffer the consequences of their actions in your dear wife. Mr. Crocodile, she has played you as a fool. While up on my rock I saw your wife's crocodile tears but they were fake tears so that you would get this monkey's heart for her. This monkey has done nothing wrong."

Confused and hurt the crocodile slunk back into the water towards his wife. He looked at her the solemnly then told her, "From now on, anytime you cry, whether it is real or not, I will assume you are creating fake crocodile tears. No lion or monkey or any other animal will ever be able to trust a crocodile's tears from now on."

And so, this is how insincere tears became known as crocodile tears. And a crocodile's tears have never been trusted since.

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Author's Notes: In my story, I used elements from W.H.D. short tale, The Crocodile, and the Monkey. In the original story, a crocodile wife merely tells her husband she wants to eat a monkey's heart and is so upset about not having one that she cries "crocodile tears." When I heard this phrase in the original story, I knew I wanted to create a story about the origin of the phrase, "crocodile tear." In the original story, the crocodile husband tries to trick the monkey by offering him a ride on his back across the river to another fruit tree so that he can give his wife the monkey's heart to eat. The monkey catches on to the crocodile's plan and lies to him that he does not keep his heart in his body but in a tree. The husband crocodile gets tricked by the monkey and the monkey is able to live. I deiced to keep the characters, for the most part, the same by having a husband and wife crocodile enjoying time together in the river and the fact that the wife wanted to eat the monkey's heart. However, for my story, I had to make the husband crocodile seem friendlier and caring about the balance of nature, even though once again he can be tricked by another character in the story. Because of the husband's personality, the wife is angry and wants to trick her husband into getting the monkey's heart for her. The monkey character was pretty much the same, just trying to stay alive which is why he leaves when the crocodile asks him nicely the first time. I added the character of the wise lion since this animal would be intimidating to the crocodile so that he would listen to him about the truth. I hope you have enjoyed my story and would love to hear feedback!

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Image: Saltwater crocodile swimming in a swamp. Source: Wikipedia by Matt

Reading Notes: Reading B: The Giant Crab, and Other Tales from Old India

Friends, Teasing, and Love.

For the second part of the reading of The Giant Crab andOther Tales from Old India by W. H. D. Rouse. I was supposed to read through twelve stories, but one of the stories would not open, so I only got to read eleven. I enjoyed the first story, Birds of a Feather because of the final lesson/poem that was at the end. There is a mean horse Chestnut that does not get along with any of the other horses, and the king uses him to hurt other horses to he can buy the bruised horses at a discounted price. But a horse seller tries to use his mean horse Strongjaw to be mean to Chestnut so that he will not hurt any of the other horses. But when the two horses meet they do not fight but seem to become friends which is how the saying birds of a feather flock together came into play. I think this story can relate and does relate to humans. Like how two troubled teens may not be able to make friends with other students at school but when they meet can become instant friends. This could be a possible rewrite. The next story I thought I could rewrite was the story; Silence is Golden. In the story a lion cub has a lion for a father and a jackal for a mother. As the cub is growing up, he looks like a lion but has the voice of a jackal. Becuase of this when the other lions hear the lion-jackal cub attempting to roar they laugh and make fun of him. He learns that he cannot talk to the other lions, but I am curious how the jackals would feel about the lion-jackal cub. Since he looks like a lion and we can assume he has the power of a lion and they might want to make him their leader. He could intimidate the other animals and the lions. The last story I would like to change is the ending to The Jackal Would A-Wooing Go. In the story, a jackal has fallen in love with a lioness. He gets the courage to go over to her den and ask her to marry him. The lioness gets offended that the jackal even thinks he could marry her because she comes from a higher status than him. Long story short to protect her honor two of the lioness brothers die and then the jackal dies just because the lioness thinks she is too good for the jackal. I think this story could have a more Romeo and Juliet feel. Where the lioness is in love with the jackal but she must hide it from her brother. The couple then decides that they will have to sneak off in the middle of the day to try and escape her brothers. This story could turn into a happier romantic recreation. 

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Image: Lion love. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Reading Notes: Reading A: The Giant Crab, and Other Tales from Old India

More animal tales. 

From taking Mythology and Folklore, I have become a big fan of the stories with the animal lessons in them, mainly the Jataka Anthology stories. I chose to read The Giant Crab and Other Tales from Old India by W. H. D. Rouse. The first part of the reading was a collection of twelve different stories. However, I only found a few that I liked and could recreate. This first story idea I came up with was creating a prequel tale to The Giant Crab. In the story, the giant crab kills any animal that comes into the water to drink and eats them (which is how he got so big). In the end, a husband and wife elephant couple trick the crab and crush him to death. I think I could create a story about how the crab became so big and meant to other animals because they picked on him for his small size. Another story that I could possible recreates only came from one line in the story The Crocodile and the Monkey. In the story, the wife crocodile is upset and wants the monkey's heart to eat, and the husband finds this out because she is crying "crocodile tears." When I heard the phrase "crocodile tears, I came up the idea of creating a story about how humans began to use to phase "crocodile tears" meaning someone was fake crying. I could use the wife crocodile to trick the husband by fake crying to get everything she wants, and the monkey helps the husband discover that she is fake crying to get what she wants. The final idea came from a combination of two stories The Monkeys and the Gardner and The Goblin in the Pool. In the story of The Monkeys and the Gardner, the gardener tries to take a break from tending the garden to enjoy himself at a fair. He asks the monkeys that live in the garden to help take care of the plants while he is gone and water them. Sadly, the monkeys pull up the roots of the plants to decided how much water to give each plant based on the length of the roots which obviously kills the plants. The monkeys are seen a foolish and not very smart in the story even though they try to help the gardener out. However, in the story of The Goblin in the Pool, the monkeys know there is a creature in the pond that they want to get water from so they cannot drink from it. A human comes along and helps the monkeys by showing them that they can use a reed to drink out of the pond. In this story, the monkeys can learn from the human on how to drink water without being eaten by the creature. I think the lesson that the monkeys learn in the goblin story can be incorporated into the story from the monkeys in the garden where they learn from watching the gardener how to water the plants.

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Image: Monkeys in India. Source: Wikimedia Commons 

Week 9 Story: Before the Rivalry Began

I am born to be something more. 

When I was little, I would love to go with my father when he would visit King Draupad. My father was a great charioteer, and King Draupad would only go into battle with my father as his driver. Even though my father was not born of noble birth, King Draupad always treated him and my family as equals. I would watch them leave for battle and could not hold back my excitement. One day I would leave for battle and return victorious just like them.

We were allowed to visit the capitol anytime. But when my father was away in battles with King Draupad, my mother and me stayed at the capitol. During our time at the capitol, I would play with the prince and princess. It was a simple time. As children, we did not know about birth rights and ranking. But as I got older, I learned that even though the prince and princess treated me like a friend, I was still beneath. I was still a servant.

When the prince began to train in weaponry to become a skillful warrior, I would watch from a distance envious. My parents had already told me that I would be trained to be a skillful charioteer. It would be my honor to be the charioteer for the prince who would one day be king. But in my soul, I could feel that I was meant for more than being a charioteer to a king. I was meant to be a warrior.

My charioteer training began. But I would keep a watchful eye on the prince's training. That way whenever I got the chance, I could practice weaponry to become a skillful warrior. The prince would even come over and spar with me. Even though we both knew what place we had to take when we were old enough the prince knew I wanted more. The years passed and my training continued until today.

Today I heard that King Dhrita-rashtra plans to have a tournament so that his sons and nephews can showcase their warrior skills. There is a warrior that everyone marvels at his ability, Prince Arjun.  I know that if I can show that I am a greater warrior than he is, I will have to be accepted as a warrior. All I have to do is beat Arjun in front of everyone, and everyone will know that I am more than a charioteer.  

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Author's Notes: This story is meant to be a prequel to Karna's life before he goes off to challenge Arjun in the tournament in the Mahabharata by R.K. Narayan and The Five Tall Sons of Pandu by Richard Wilson. Even though Karan is actually of royal birth, he does not know that he is related to the Pandu brothers until the end of the story. In both of the stories, we learn that Karna is raised by a charioteer, but we do not learn any more about his childhood. I pictured that even though Karna respected and honored his adopted father profession, it was not the life he wanted. He felt like he was born to be more. (Which he actually was but did not know it.) So, I combined the childhood of Karna with the childhood of a prince and princess. This way he could see how a prince lived and started becoming envious of being a warrior from a young age. I wanted to show that he was determined to become the best. So that when he learned about Arjun being the greatest warrior he felt that the only way he could feel better about himself was to defeat Arjun. I hope you have enjoyed my story and would love to hear feedback!

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Image: The coronation of Karna to be a king. Source: Wikipedia