Reading Notes: Indian Fairy Tales, Part B

Story Source: Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1912)

The Talkative Tortoise

• This story is very similar to The Tortoise and the Ducks by Aesop (Notes on this story)
• This version ends with the Buddha witnessing the death of the tortoise and warning the king to not speak so much so he won't end up like the tortoise

The Gold Giving Serpent

• A farmer didn't have a good harvest and noticed a big snake nearby
• He thought the snake may be the guardian deity of the field so he started giving him milk and praising him
• The next day, the milk bowl had gold. So the farmer started giving him milk every day
• One day he had to go to the village, so he let his son take the milk instead
• The son thought if he killed the snake he could steal all the gold from its habitat
• But the snake bit him and killed him
• The dad comes back within a few days and tries to get more gold
• The snake thinks the farmer is too greedy since he's not even mourning his son, so he tells him to stop coming by

The Prince and the Fakir

• This story had many disjointed plotlines and didn't have a satisfying or meaningful ending
• A king is unable to kids, a fakir gives him some anecdote to allow him to have sons on the condition that he gets to keep one of them
• The king agrees but tries to hide his sons
• The fakir overhears some ants and finds out about the sons so he takes one
• That son ends up killing the fakir and freeing all the people he kept in his house
• The son eventually weds a princess