Week 7 Reading Diary: African Stories Lang

I decided to read the African Stories by Andrew Lang to get a view at the African fairy tales.

Jackal from Wes Phalan

The first story is about a man and wife and their child. The wife is very thin and frail and the husband runs many errands to fetch things for her. They then switch places and the wife bumps into an ogre, that she promises her first child to. The child however, is a wizard. He uses bones to tell him what he should do to escape the ogre. He collects the village children his age and prepares them like his mother prepared him. I like that the child is outsmarting the ogre, although I feel bad that the ogre has been cheated out of a meal. In the end the ogre accidently eats the father, because the child switches their blankets. I like that the moral of the story is that you must pay the consequences of your actions.

The next story is about a Jackal and other animals collecting water. It reminds a lot of the story about the chicken who bakes pies and everyone helps, but one animal. That animal then doesn't get any because they didn't help. But in this story the Jackal tricks the rabbit and the hare to tie themselves up so he can get water. The tortoise is the only one smart enough to not believe the jackal.

The third story is also about a Jackal, but is also about his friend the hedgehog. It is also about the jackal tricking a panther! However, in the end the panther gives up trying to chase them. The jackal gets his punishment though, because he is killed by a greyhound after being tricked by a shepherd. The hedgehog knew it was a greyhound, but the jackal wouldn't believe him. I liked this tale because it shows that you are not always the smartest person in the room and being overly confident can kill you.

The next two stories are about the jackal's sons. The elder won is in a fight about a green cloak. He manages to escape with it though. I liked this tale because of  where he meets another lion and hyena. He is clever enough to learn from the death of the hyena that he should give all of the food to the lion. I did not like the ending of the story though, because the elder son also gets killed by the hedgehog, who crushes him with a big stone! The younger son seems to get a better deal in the long run! He tricks a sheep into doing the work for him while growing corn. He tries to give the sheep only one share, but the sheep gets the greyhound to scare the jackal. This works and the sheep gets her fair share!