Week 6 Reading Diary: Japanese Fairy tales Lang (cont.)

For the second week I chose to read more from the Japanese Fairy Tales by Andrew Lang

This round of stories is off to a good start, more animal stories! I liked that this one was about dogs and cats fighting. I think that it is a cute rivalry but also shows how bravery can help any situation.

The next story has a more direct moral in the story. It is about a crab who takes care of her home and is wise to take a seed and let it grow into a tree for more food. The monkey steals food and is disrespectful, leaving the crab for dead. However, the crab and her friends get revenge on the monkey and kill him. Although it is a bit brutal for my tastes, it clearly shows the moral that those who give and are kind are rewarded and those who steal and are mean will be punished.

This third tale seems a little more on the cheesy side. I like that the kettle turns into a tanuki, which appears to be a very cute little raccoon dog, but the tale itself is a little overdone. The overall moral of this story however seems to be that being honest will bring you fortune and luck in your life. And both of the owners of the kettle live a long, happy life to prove that moral.

This next tale is also centered around tanuki. Although this time there is an evil tanuki who kills the mother fox. His son is able to deceive him however and revenge his mothers death. I liked this tale because it shows how cleverness is always useful, but one must must be careful with how confident they are and how prideful they become.

The fifth tale is also about tanukis (sensing a trend here) and they are apparently not always nice creatures! This one kills a mans wife and then eats her! A hare and the man plot revenge and eventually kill the tanuki. I think that this stories main point is to try and show that you must never trust tanuki! Although, I feel a little bad for the tanukis...

This last story is about a man who saves a turtle and is thanked by the turtle later by saving the man's life. The turtle then takes the man to a palace and meets a princess. This leads to the man marrying the princess. I liked this part because of the illustrations shown in the story. I think that it is sad though because the man doesn't realize that his parents have died because he has stayed underwater for so long! This is truly about love and I think that it makes me think about spending more time with my parents because you never know what could happen in life!

The illustration from the last tale from the stories