Reading Notes
This week I chose to read Japanese Fairy Tales for my reading notes, and found a few that I really enjoyed. The first story that I was surprised to see was the Story of the Stone-Cutter. This story was extraordinarily similar to the first story I read in this course, The Man in the Moon. Although they are both stories about transformation that originated in Asia, the stone-cutter story was very different in the sense that the man ended up as what he was originally. I think it could be really interesting to retell this story since I have already told a similar story with a different end. Perhaps in this story the stone-cutter could have heard the tale of The Man, The Moon and sought out the wise woman to transform him so that he could have a happier life. It would be fun to tell the story in a similar way, but rather than make the stone-cutter end up as something else have the wise woman teach him the lesson of appreciating what you already have.
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| (Japanese Mountain, Katsushika Hokusai) |
The other story I really enjoyed from this week was the story of The Maiden With the Wooden Helmet. In this story a beautiful young woman is taught the value of work and her mom advises her to wear a wooden helmet to hide her beauty so she is appreciated for her work. When a young man sees the beautiful girl he falls in love and when he finally convinces her to marry him she cannot remove the helmet. The young man does not care and still wishes to marry the beautiful girl, and after the wedding the helmet turns to jewels. I feel like telling this story would be great because it has an important message. If I were to retell the story I may retell it from the young man's perspective and explain how he appreciates her work ethic and does not care what she looks like.
Bibliography
The Crimson Fairy Book by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1903).
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