Persian Tales: Reading Diary A

The Wolf and the Goat: I really enjoyed reading this story. It is about a wolf that tricks a goat and kidnaps the goat’s kids. The goat then gets smart and goes back to trick the wolf. In the end, the goat wins and the wolf floats away down the river. I liked all of the trickery throughout the story.

The City of Nothing-in-the-World: This is a story about a girl sent to go get some cooling ointment in exchange for two eggs. On the way, she loses her eggs and there begins a long story of how she attempted to get her eggs back. This story was very interesting to me and I really enjoyed the way it played out.

Susku and Mushu: This story is about a mouse and a beetle. They talk about marrying each other and what they would do if they were married.  In a chain of weird events, everything hurt itself in some way. This was a very odd story and a very weird ending.

The Boy who became Bulbul: This is a very interesting story. It is kind of messed up because a dad cuts his own son’s head off and eats it for dinner. It is the step mom’s fault, but she gets her punishment. This is a pretty dark story in my opinion.

The Wolf-Aunt: This starts out about a man who gathers thorn bushes for a living. He wasn’t doing very well, and a woman appeared and told him she could help. In the end, the man didn’t listen to his wife, so the other lady ate her. A very odd ending to the story I thought.

Nim Tanak, or Half-Boy: The king was upset he couldn’t have kids. So a derwish gave the king an apple to give to each of his wives. One of the wives only ate half an apple, and therefore only had half of a kid.  I wasn’t a huge fan of this story but I did like the end of it.

Muhammad Tirandaz, The Archer: This is a story about a man who killed two mice with one arrow. He eventually became the commander-in-chief of the king’s army. I like this story because it is about a man starting from nothing and becoming great. I like stories that give hope.

The Praying Baker: A baker loses a ring that belongs to the king. The king gave him ten days to find the ring. On the tenth day the ring showed up in his dinner, and he gave it to the king. I thought this story was kind of pointless because the baker didn’t do much of anything. He just got lucky.

The Sad Tale of the Mouse's Tail: This story reminded me of an old story called “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly” because the story just keeps building on itself. I did like this story even though it didn’t have a very good ending.

Photo by George Shuklin