From Here To India- My Epics of India Course Blog

  Image of Babbity Rabbity      Once upon a time, there was a witch named Babbity Rabbity who lived in a charming house. She loved practicing her magic. She had to do it in secret, however. For these were the days of the Witch Trials, and any person accused of practicing witchcraft was usually killed.      One day she was practicing her magic as usual, and she thought she was doing it secretly enough, but a sliver of her curtain was open. A young man, who had been passing close by her house as he did everyday, glanced into her window and witnessed her reciting incantations. Face paling with horror, he ran to the town leader to tell him what he had observed. The leader, angry and frightened, rounded up the townsfolk and went to her house.      The witch, surprisingly, didn't deny the accusations. She was a witch and she was proud of it. She was a kind witch, who had never hurt anyone with her magic. They gathered around her, off...

     For this half of the reading, I chose to focus on "The Ox Who Envied the Pig. The story starts out that a farmer had two oxen and a pig. The farmer's daughter was to be married, so they decided to fatten up the pig to serve at the feast. The two ox noticed that the pig was being fed choice food and they were being feed lean food.      The ox Big Red told Little Red that the pig ate the food of death! HE was being fattened to eat. The pig was killed, and Little Red learned a valuable lesson. They could eat lean food like grasses and live for a long time. Or they could eat the food of death and die soon. Little Red soon became very grateful that he was eating the food he was, because it meant that he could continue to work and live.  This story gave me vibes of "be careful what you wish for". Also with the death part it reminded me of the scene in Game of Thrones, where (spoiler alert) Joffrey dies from poisoning. Someone slipped poison into ...

    For this week I chose to read Jataka Tales. Specifically, I wanted to write about the story of how the turtle saved his own life. The story starts out talking about a king who decided that he wanted to put a lake in the courtyard. The princes played in the lake all the time, and eventually their father the king told them that fish had been put into the lake. So they went to the lake to see the new fish. It so happened that there was a turtle lying on the bank. The princes had never seen a turtle before, and they thought it was a demon.     They came running their father, and when he heard he had the turtle/demon brought in and they decided what to do with it. Many suggestions were made about how to kill the poor turtle. Then a man, who was scared of the water, suggested throwing it into the river. The turtle was cunning, and upon hearing this he said things like "Oh, not the water!!" The people took him for his word, and the turtle was brought to the water, w...