Reading Notes: Chinese Fairy Tales Part A

I chose to read Chinese Fairy Book by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921) for week 7.  Many of the stories in this unit had relatively happy endings with way fewer grim deaths than I've seen in previous units.  Although some of the bizarre and downright cruel deaths from previous units were interesting to read about, it was definitely nice to have a break from it. 

The Cave of the Beasts
I said these stories were (mostly) free from heinous murders, but not necessarily attempted murder!  The reasons for characters wanting to kill others usually strikes me as completely unwarranted most of the time, like in this story, where a father wants to kill his daughters because they ate one of his eggs.  Seriously!  Luckily the girls don't die, and actually end up returning home with jewels and riches, which they strangely share with their father.  I'd rewrite the ending to this story and ensure that the cruel father is punished for trying to murder two of his girls, and not rewarded with riches!  I'd probably have the girls spare the lives of the fox and wolf, and recruit them to seek revenge on the dad.  I'm not sure what style I'd use to write this story; I'd probably keep it pretty similar to the original otherwise.

The Girl with the Horse's Head
This story caught me off guard - the imagery was a little shocking and slightly disturbing, but nevertheless, I enjoyed it.  There are several ways in which I could rework this story.  I could tell the story from the perspective of the horse, maybe give him a little more credit, perhaps.  Alternatively, I could have the girl actually marry the horse, and then have him turn into a charming prince, instead of killed and skinned.  I could also do sort of the opposite, and have the horse still be killed, but afterwards the girl is cursed - any boy she kisses turns into a horse.  Maybe they happen to live in a big glue producing town, too.... There are lots of possibilities within this story!

A whole family of horse headed folk! By Brandon on Flickr

The Miserly Farmer
In this story, a farmer does not act very benevolent toward a poor priest, and ends up paying for it in the end.  The way that the priest tricks the farmer reminded me of a magician.  I could rework this story into a story about a poor magician who gets by performing tricks on unsuspecting wealthy folk.  I don't know much about magic or magic tricks, so if I were to do this, it may require a bit of research.