Reading Notes: A Flowering Tree

This week I chose a new source to work with, and I was not disappointed. The stories are a bit weird, but very entertaining.

The first story I read, called "A Story and a Song", was about a woman who had a story and song she wanted to tell, but she kept them in too long, so they took revenge. In the middle of the night, the story and song became a man's coat and boots. The woman's husband got jealous and they fought. The strange part of the story is that the woman's husband got the explanation from a group of gossiping lamp flames. It's interesting how inanimate objects were able to talk. The husband heard them talking about the true reason for the boots and coat being at their house and so he went home and asked about the song. The most disappointing part of the story is that she had forgotten the story and song. They could have sounded beautiful and it was all wasted because she didn't let them free. The commentary is really interesting because it talks about how nothing is destroyed; it is transformed.

The next story("A Brother, Sister, and a Snake") that was interesting was this one about a King, his new wife, and 2 children. The step-mother did not like the children, so she tried to kill the girl by putting a baby snake in her water. The snake stayed in her stomach, and the two children were banished for some weird reason. The brother and sister stayed in a forest with a nice Ogre for many years until one day her brother for some reason turns into a snake and long story short she almost marries her dad until she tells her story to him and then everyone lives happily ever after.

I liked this story called "Cannibal Sister." The title basically contains the story. There is a family and a baby is born and it looks weird and terrifying but the mother doesn't think anything of it. One night, a brother wakes up in the middle of the night and sees when the demon baby goes out and eats villagers and comes back to sleep in the crib like a human baby. He leaves town and comes back with trained lions to kill his "sister." He ends up killing his sister, but only after his demon sister had eaten his horse's legs off.

A Ghost Town, Wikipedia

Bibliography: A.K. Ramanujan. A Flowering Tree and Other Oral Tales from India. Link to reading.