On Saturday, Joy at Joy's Book Blog, posted a couple of photos she took at the Missouri Botanical Garden Lantern Festival and gave a brief summary of the legend of The Lotus Girl and the Dragon King. The story is rather touching and Joy was kind enough to allow me to repost her photos today.
The "Lotus Girl and the Dragon King" takes place long ago in China. There was a poor blind man who had just one blessing, and this was his daughter, Shimchong.
One day the old blind man fell into a water hole. Suddenly a voice close by spoke. "Old man, if you will promise to give 300 bushels of rice to the temple in the name of Lord Buddha, you will be rewarded with your life, and your eyesight."
He quickly said, "I promise," certain it was the Lord Buddha.
The old man blinked, awaiting the return of his sight, but this did not happen. Then he realized with terror what he had...
I've got another poem today for my Thursday's Tale. It's not a funny one, though. It's a take on Hansel and Gretel. "A Happy Ending for the Lost Children" is from Starting from Sleep: New and Selected Poems by Charles Martin.
A Happy Ending for the Lost Children
by Charles Martin
One of their picture books would no doubt show
The two lost children wandering in a maze
Of anthropomorphic tree limbs: the familiar crow
Swoops down upon the trail they leave of corn,
Tolerant of the error of their ways.
Hand in hand they stumble onto the story,
Brighteyed with beginnings of fever, scared
Half to death, yet never for a moment
Doubting the outcome that had been prepared
Long in advance: Girl saves brother from oven,
Appalling witch dies in appropriate torment;
Her hoarded treasure buys them their parents' love.
***
"As happy an ending as any fable
Can provide," squawks the crow, who had expected more:
Delicate morsels from the witch's table.
It's an old story—in the modern version
The random children fall to random terror.
You see...
Today's story is from Denmark and was told by Benjamin Thorpe in Yule-Tide Stories, 1888. "The Girl Clad in Mouse-Skin" is similar to Maid Maleen from the Grimms, but has a few differences.
Once there was a nobleman who had a daughter he loved very much. There was a war going on in the land and the nobleman had a room built into a hill and took his daughter there, along with her dog. He left her provisions for seven years, telling here that if he did not come back for her by then he was surely dead and she should leave the room on her own. She spent her time spinning and sewing beautiful dresses with silver and gold embroidery, but after seven long years, the food ran out and no one came. She began to dig herself out, but it was a long, difficult job. Her food was gone, but the hill was full of mice, her little dog killed many each...
Most of us know Hans Christian Andersen's story "The Emperor's New Clothes." Two weavers promise an Emperor a new suit of clothes that is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. When the Emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, no one dares to say that he doesn't see any suit of clothes until a child cries out, "But he isn't wearing anything at all!" You gotta love the honesty of children and the stupidity of adults who want to be special.
I was in a Muppets mood today, so here's their version of the story.
Thursday’s Tales is a weekly event here at Carol’s Notebook. Fairy tales, folktales, tall tales, even re-tellings, I love them all. Feel free to join in....
I'm sticking with tales featuring women again this week. "The Ghost at Fjelkinge" is a story from Sweden that features a brave, wealthy woman. It was told by Claire Boose in Scandinavian Folk and Fairy Tales, published in 1984, but I read it in Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters edited by Kathleen Ragan.
Madame Margaretta Barkenow was a widow who owned many of the best estates in Skåne at the southernmost tip of Sweden in the early seventeenth century. She was a good manager, intelligent, energetic, and she took good care of her dependents.
One evening, as Margaretta was journeying through her estates, she stopped to stay at Fjelkinge's inn and insisted on sleeping in the "ghost's room." It was said that a traveler had been murdered there a few years before and his ghost supposedly appeared nightly in that room. Most people refused to stay at that inn, let alone in that room, but I can just picture Margaretta...
"The Spider, Kayi, and the Bush Fowl" is a story from Sierra Leone, and it's pretty funny. It was recorded by Ruth Finnegan in Limba Stories and Story-Telling in 1967, but I read it in Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters edited by Kathleen Ragan.
The spider and his wife, Kayi, lived in a hut. One day the spider trapped a bush fowl and killed it. He brought it home and told his wife there was food and to lay it down, which she did. Kayi pounded the millet for the meal, put it down and went to get water. When she was gone the spider ate the millet. When Kayi came back she asked who ate the millet. The spider blamed the bush fowl. She questioned him but the spider said it was true so she only replied, "Well, all right."
Later, the spider got up to tap his palm tree. While he was gone, Kayi prepared the bird, boiled it...