Chinese Fairy Tales: Reading Diary B

Kitsunebi on New Years Night under the Enoki tree near Oji

• The tale of the Little Hunting Dog starts out with knights two inches high.  A good start
• I don’t think this is supposed to be a comical story, but the idea is very laugh worthy.
• Also, it kind of reminded me of Gulliver’s Travels
• Such a terrible ending!  The little dog was so so good and then he got smooshed.
• Why was the fox preparing the elixir of life?
• Aren’t foxes or kitsunes trickster animals?
• Why did the farmer take the animal’s fire?
• Sounds like the farmer gained some amazing abilities from the fox’s fire
• He earned money from it?  There almost always is some sort of penalty for using these types of things for personal gain…
• Does the fox let the man keep it’s fire-ball?  Because thirty years is a long time.  That seems awfully generous.
• Wait, silver foxes aren’t silver? 
• Ma expects the water-carrier to get revenge on old Wang instead of him
• Wait, so Ma saw the water-carrier’s soul?
• What goes around comes around I guess.  Old Wang kind took part in the water-carrier falling off the terrace and then the little boy who had the water-carrier’s spirit is kind of responsible for Old Wang falling down as well.
• Is seems like the story of the Maiden Who Was Stolen Away could be the start of some old “friend-zoned” story.
• It also kind of sounds like Rapunzel.

Chinese Fairy Tales