Readings Notes: Persian Fairytales, Part B

Hi there!

I decided to continue reading the Persian Fairytales unit for the second reading of this week because I enjoyed the first half so much. Interestingly, the second half contained stories that seemed to make more sense to me, or at least connect more. Some of the stories that I liked the most were "The Shah Abbas and the Poor Mother," "Fayiz and the Peri Wife," and "The Merchant and the Saffron."

I think what I liked the best about "The Shah Abbas and the Poor Mother," and the "The Merchant and the Saffron" was the kindness of certain characters. In the first it was the Shah and the second, the Saffron Seller. In many of the stories I have read for this class there is a lot of injustice or unkindness and sometimes just really bad luck that the stories are centered around, and while both of these stories have those traits they also have characters that try to improve the situation. These stories seem to be lessons in the goodness of humans, which is something that I really enjoy.

Looking forward to the story writing for this week I think that it would be nice to take one of the more tragic stories I have read thus far and add in a character or change and existing character so that the story speaks more to the good in humans than the bad. "Nim Tanak" may be a good story for this or "The Boy Who Became a Bulbul" which are both stories that I talked about using for my writing earlier this week.

I think the most surprising thing for me in the stories I have read so far is the similarities between stories of different cultures. I saw this highlighted really well in "Fayiz and the Peri Wife." This story is similar in many ways to the story of "Cupid and Psyche." However, in this story, once Fayiz betrays the Peri, she does not return to take him back and somehow I find that more realistic, although less happy and romantic. In the future, it may be an interesting writing exercise to take two stories that are similar from different cultures and somehow weave them together.

Bibliography

"The Shah Abbas and the Poor Mother," "Fayiz and the Peri Wife," "The Merchant and the Saffron." all from Persian Tales translated by D. L.R. Lorimer and E.O. Lorimer

Photo Credits

"Bottled Saffron" by ulleo via Pixabay

Comments

Reading Notes: The Man in the Moon and Pygmalion

Hello! I couldn’t quite decide how to start these notes, so I decided I would stick with that theme and take style notes over how the stories in the anthology were started. Many of them started with some form of “ once upon a time,” or “one day” this included the stories in, The divine, Tricksters, and the Fairytales sections. This is a beginning I think a lot of us are familiar with from fairytales and has almost become a cliché in some ways. Unless I was going to write a fairytale, I don’t think that I would use this tool to start a story and even then, I might not. The other stories in the anthology had what I called a “ cold start ,” to distinguish them from the stories that used the “once upon a time” start. There were a few similarities that I noticed. The stories in the Origins section were a very cold start. For instance, “ The Man in the Moon ” only states that there was a blacksmith that didn’t like his job. We don’t learn anything about who he is as a p...

Reading Notes: Japanese Fairy Tales, Part B

Hi! I missed the second reading for this week, so I am making it up today with these reading notes over Japanese fairy tales. This reading included three stories, one of and Ogre, a Goblin, and a Princess not unlike the story of Cinderella. All three of these are from Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki, who is pictured above with her husband. Out of the three stories, I liked the story about the Princes Hase the best, so I took notes over that story specifically. Here are those notes. The story of Princess Hase is told from a third person perspective. In the story there is very little dialogue. In fact, the only dialogue in the pieces, is that of the step-mother right before her poisoning attempt backfires and at the end when Hase’s father finds her hiding in the mountains. I think that this sparing use of dialogue at the worst and best point in the story is an interesting style choice that creased a stronger connection to the story at those points. I think that ...

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 T...

Mythology Blog

Search This Blog