Reading Notes: Week 2 Anthology

Full Moon from Wikimedia Commons

The Man in the Moon by Katherine Neville Fleeson (1899)

A blacksmith does not like his job, so he asks to be a stone. A stonecutter came to cut him, which hurt, so he asks to be a stonecutter. He became too tired, so he asked to be the sun, but it was too warm, so he asked to be the moon. Finally, he asked to be a smith again, but the wise man was tired of his attitude, so he left him to forever stay as the moon. 

The Indian Who Wrestled with a Ghost by Katherine Berry Judson (1913)

A man walks alone in the woods, he lays down for the night. He is woken up by a woman crying out for her son, then the woman approached to check on him and pulls a knife. He then confronts her and she ran for the woods. Another night a ghost singer comes and asks him for food, he gives him dinner and a pipe but sees nothing but bones. The ghost then challenges him to wrestle. The man won because day broke, and he made the fire stronger, thus making the ghost weaker. He killed his enemy and stole horses, as the ghost had said. 

Pygmalion by Ovid and translated by Tony Kline (2000)

Pygmalion priant Vénus d'animer sa statue

Man lives as a bachelor until he makes a young woman out of ivory and falls in love with it. He cares for her, dressed her, offers her gifts, and hopes that she is real. He then prayed to Venus on the day of her festival to have a bride like his ivory girl, so Venus turned the statue into a real live woman and they were married. 

The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal by Joseph Jacobs (1912)

A man frees a lion from a cage after making him promise that he would not eat him. The lion is freed and ignores his promise, but allows the Braham to ask others what they think of the situation. They all tell him that he should not expect gratitude, except the jackal who does not understand the story. He makes the Braham take him to the place it all happened and makes the lion show him how it happened, thus making him enter the cage and locking him up again.