For Week 5, I've decided to read Twenty-Two Goblins because the description said he talks in riddles and I absolutely love riddles. So here are my thoughts on the first half of this unit.
The first story I enjoyed was the story of the Three Lovers. In it, a girl dies and the three men who had been vying for her hand in marriage each did different things. One takes her ashes and sleeps with them in the cemetery, one takes her bones and dips them in the Ganges River, and the third wanders the country. The third one finds a spell to bring her back to life, and the three men end up fighting even more. So the goblin asks the king who deserves to be her husband, which he answers by saying the man who slept with her ashes in the cemetery deserved to. That definitely wasn't the answer I figured it would be, but it makes sense when you think about it.
Next was the Girl, Her Husband and Her Brother. I've been wondering what the Sanskrit names are, since the translation names are things like Lovely and White and Clean-cloth. As I read through, I really questioned White's thought process. He decides the best sacrifice to the goddess is his himself, so he somehow manages to cut off HIS OWN HEAD. Then, his brother sees him dead in the temple and he cuts off HIS OWN HEAD ALSO. What is wrong with these people? The wife of White decides she's gonna off herself as well, but the goddess saves her. She promises to revive the men, but Lovely puts the wrong head on each body. The riddle is "which one is truly her husband?" The king says the one with her husband's head. I actually got that one right.
The riddle for the last story I read, Food, Women and Cotton, is "which out of the specialists in food, women or cotton is the cleverest?" Basically, each shows to a king how specialized they are in their respective fields. The food specialist doesn't eat the rice because it smells of corpses, as it was grown near a cemetery. The women specialist is disgusted by a woman in his presence because she smells of goats, as she was raised on goat milk. The cotton specialist can't sleep on a bed covered with seven quilts because a single hair touches his body. The king tells the goblin the cotton specialist is the cleverest, because he couldn't possibly know the hair was there, while the other two could know about the problems with their specialties. I definitely got this one wrong!
The goblin Vetala hanging in the tree (unit picture)
The first story I enjoyed was the story of the Three Lovers. In it, a girl dies and the three men who had been vying for her hand in marriage each did different things. One takes her ashes and sleeps with them in the cemetery, one takes her bones and dips them in the Ganges River, and the third wanders the country. The third one finds a spell to bring her back to life, and the three men end up fighting even more. So the goblin asks the king who deserves to be her husband, which he answers by saying the man who slept with her ashes in the cemetery deserved to. That definitely wasn't the answer I figured it would be, but it makes sense when you think about it.
Next was the Girl, Her Husband and Her Brother. I've been wondering what the Sanskrit names are, since the translation names are things like Lovely and White and Clean-cloth. As I read through, I really questioned White's thought process. He decides the best sacrifice to the goddess is his himself, so he somehow manages to cut off HIS OWN HEAD. Then, his brother sees him dead in the temple and he cuts off HIS OWN HEAD ALSO. What is wrong with these people? The wife of White decides she's gonna off herself as well, but the goddess saves her. She promises to revive the men, but Lovely puts the wrong head on each body. The riddle is "which one is truly her husband?" The king says the one with her husband's head. I actually got that one right.
The riddle for the last story I read, Food, Women and Cotton, is "which out of the specialists in food, women or cotton is the cleverest?" Basically, each shows to a king how specialized they are in their respective fields. The food specialist doesn't eat the rice because it smells of corpses, as it was grown near a cemetery. The women specialist is disgusted by a woman in his presence because she smells of goats, as she was raised on goat milk. The cotton specialist can't sleep on a bed covered with seven quilts because a single hair touches his body. The king tells the goblin the cotton specialist is the cleverest, because he couldn't possibly know the hair was there, while the other two could know about the problems with their specialties. I definitely got this one wrong!
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