Reading Notes: Persian Tales Part A

Hello!

This week I chose to read the Persian Tales unit and was not disappointed. Some of these fairy tales like “The Boy Who Became a Bulbul” and “The Wolf-Aunt” reminded me of the Brother’s Grim Fairytales in their more original forms. The others seemed a little more child friendly like we might expect of fairytales today. Thinking of my story for this week, any of them could make a fun base for writing, but I think that the ones that would be the best to work with would be “The Boy Who Became a Bulbul,” “Nim Tanak,” or “Muhammad Tirandaz, The Archer.”

For “The Boy Who Became a Bulbul” I would make the circumstances of the boy’s death make more sense to a modern reader, not just based on a bet with his father that he willingly submits to. I would also want to somehow bring the boy back, maybe instead of the Bulbul growing out of the stalk, he does. Or maybe his father doesn’t kill him but hides him instead. Either way I would like for the boy to live.

For “Nim Tanak” it seemed like Nim being half a boy could be a metaphor for being an illegitimate son or possibly having some sort of handicap. I think it would be interesting to explore that story in a modern setting possibly.

In “Muhammad Tirandaz, The Archer” I thought it was comical that Muhammad was so gung-ho about something that his peers said jesting at him. It was also fun to be suspense through the story, worrying that he may be found out as a lousy archer or possibly that he is a great archer after all. It would be fun to rewrite this story so that at the end he is either a great archer without trying or so that he accidentally hits the King of the opposing army.

I think that all three of these would be fun stories for this week, and I could possibly even write a second one for extra credit if I have time. Either way, I am looking forward to it!

Bibliography

"Persian Tales" Translated by David Lorimer and Emily Lorimer

Image

Photo by mshamma - Pergamon Museum, CC BY 2.0

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