Week 4 Essay: Wisdom Through Riddles

Wisdom was a central theme in this week's reading unit, Twenty-Two Goblins. In the story, a king was trying to accomplish the task assigned to him by a monk. The king was supposed to bring a dead body to the cemetery. But there was a goblin living in the dead body that was hanging from a tree who tried to trick the king with riddles.

(Image information: "The Goblin in a Tree" by Perham W. Nahl 1917.)

Each story was part of a greater story, and the riddles at the end of each story underscored the overall theme of wisdom. Because while the king was on a quest to complete his assigned task, he was also on a quest to discover the true motives of the monk, and he did this by impressing the goblin with the correct answers to the riddles.

In the beginning, the riddles were fairly similar. They were questions like if three lovers all contributed to bringing a dead girl to life, which one deserves her as his wife? The king would then say something like that only the man who slept by her lifeless body each night deserved to marry her because that is the role of a husband. I definitely guessed that answer before I read it. But over the course of the story, the goblin's riddles became trickier.

A more difficult riddle was about a Brahman who died because a snake's poison dripped from his mouth into the Brahman's food that was given to him by a charitable man. But the snake was dying in the claws of a hawk when it happened. So who is to blame for the Brahman's death? I thought it would be the hawk because the snake couldn't help what he did while he was dying, and the charitable man was only trying to be friendly. But the hawk was already trying to kill someone. But the king said that the Brahman himself was responsible for his death because he accused the charitable man of poisoning him. That seemed a bit severe to me. Nonetheless, the riddles made me really contemplate the characters and the themes in order to  gain wisdom about the situation.

All throughout the story, the king had the knowledge necessary to vanquish evil, but he thought that the goblin was evil and was who needed to be defeated. So even though the king could answer almost every riddle, he still gained knowledge from his quest.

Week 4 Storytelling: The Second Chance Wedding

Once upon a time, near the river bank, a husband and wife had a beautiful daughter, Tiana. She had long, dark curly hair and skin the color of milk chocolate. She was of an age to wed, and many men pursued her. There were three men in particular who made the strongest advances, Anthony, Paul, and Colin.

The suitors would bring Tiana gifts of sweets and flowers, and the young people would spend many evenings lounging and laughing on Tiana's front porch. Over time, Tiana became close friends with all three men, and she didn't know how she would ever choose just one to marry.

But one day, Tiana tragically fell ill. The suitor were not allowed to visit her on her death bed because she was terribly contagious. Tiana's parents wept because her condition wasn't improving. A few days later, Tiana died, and the news was brought to Anthony, Paul, and Colin.

The three men all grieved together because surely they would have rather she pick a suitor other than themselves than die at such a young age.

At Tiana's funeral, the three young men all performed tasks to honor her memory. Anthony was one of the pall-bearers, who carried her casket up the aisle of the beautifully adorned church. Paul gave a touching speech about all of the good times the young lovers had spent together. Tears welled up in his eyes as he spoke. But at the end of the funeral, Colin refused to leave Tiana's side. Many friends and family members tried to pull him away and out of the church. But no one prevailed. His grief was too strong, and he felt it in such a physical way that he couldn't leave her.

That night, Colin slept in the church next to her coffin. The old church creaked eerily during the night. But nothing would sway him from his duty to Tiana.

In the morning, an angel appeared to Colin. The angel was translucent white and hovered a few inches above the floor.

"Colin," the angel said, "You have shown true devotion to your one and only love. A father figure could carry his daughter's casket up the aisle, and any friend or family member could make a heartfelt speech at her funeral. But only her true lover would spend all night with her in a creaky church. To honor your great devotion, lift the lid of the coffin and reunite with your bride."

Wiping tears from his eyes, Colin stood and opened the casket. Upon doing so, Tiana happily sat up and began to climb out. She was wearing a beautiful lace wedding dress with a long, elegant train.

(Image information: "Bride Marriage Wedding Dress" uploaded by GloriaAgostina.) 

Colin wrapped her in his arms and spun her around and around. Before they knew it, the church had filled with wedding guests, the coffin had disappeared, and wedding bells were ringing.

Author's Note: This story was inspired by "The Three Lovers Who Brought The Dead Girl to Life. Whose Wife Should She Be?" from the collection Twenty-Two Goblins, translated by Arthur W. Ryder with illustrations by Perham W. Nahl (1917).

In the original story, there are a lot of Indian customs involved in how the suitors bring the girl back to life. One suitor dips her bones in a river, another used magic, and a third kept her ashes. I chose to tell this story in a more simple way to make it more realistic than the original. My main goals for this story were to evoke emotions of loss contrasted with joy.

Week 4 Reading Diary: Twenty-Two Goblins

This week I chose to read the Indian unit about Twenty-Two Goblins.


I really love the character of the king so far. He always does the right thing.


An example of this is in the introduction when he says to Patience: "Monk, why do you keep honouring me in such an expensive way? Unless I know the reason, I will not take your fruit."


I also really enjoyed the simile about the king's heart: "A brave man's heart is harder than a diamond, and nothing makes it tremble." I have a feeling this is the moral of the king's story and how he evades the goblin.


The way some of this story is phrased makes me giggle. Like how the Coral's suitors in the story of The Three Lovers "feasted on the beauty of her face."


I think it's funny how the monk who is traveling refused to eat in the house of evil, but when the little boy was brought back to life everything was suddenly okay. How was it not still an evil house?


I also find it very funny that if the king knows the answers to the riddles but says differently that his head will explode.


I really like how deep the morals of these stories are so far. For example, "Great-minded people do not waver until they have kept their promises, even at the cost of life."


In the story of the Girl who Transposed the Heads of her Husband and Brother, I think it's interesting how Spotless was so matter-of-fact about his son, White, marrying Lovely. He explained how the two were of equal birth, wealth, and social status, and that was that. There was no concern of whether Lovely wanted to marry White at all.


The way White's brother-in-law when mad with grief and cut off his own head seems very Shakespearean to me.

In the story of The Snake's Poison, I liked how the birds, the earth, and the leaves all lamented the loss of something as Hariswami lamented the loss of his beautiful wife.

At the end of the story about The General's Wife, there is a beautiful line: "No man stops in the middle of a great undertaking." I think this is a very much needed rationale for why the kind keeps going back to get the goblin and why he keeps answering the riddles correctly. It's become the principle of the thing, and if he's going to do it, he's going to do it right.

It seems very coincidental to me that in the story of The Four Brothers, they all learned skills that were related to each other. It's almost as if they planned it that way on purpose.

I really enjoyed the ending of the story because it was so unexpected. The goblin finally stumped the king, but then the goblin turned out to be the good guy and the monk was the bad guy! I thought that was a good twist ending.