Reading Notes: The Nether World

In The Nether World from The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921), the monkey king visits the land of the dead in a dream. The most important part of the story is when he strikes out the whole ape family from the book of life. It causes uproar from everyone in the Nether World. The monkey king just caused the apes to have eternal life. I could change the plot to a more futuristic timeline and have an AI transfer the consciousness of the human mind to a computer to cause them to live forever.

Transferring Consciousness Wikimedia Commons

Story: The Two Travelers

Two friends, Gabe and Sam, were journeying together, when they came to a broad stream at the foot of a hill. The shade from the woods was so welcoming after traveling in such a small car all day and they decided to rest.

They started a fire to cook some of the food they had killed while hunting in the woods. After eating, they pitched a tent and slept. Arising from their sleep they happened upon a hologram that was projecting this message: Travelers, we have prepared an excellent banquet for your refreshment, but you must be bold and deserve it before you can obtain it.  What you are to do is this: throw yourselves bravely into the stream and swim to the other side. You will find there a lion carved from marble. This statue you must lift upon your shoulders and, with one run, carry to the top of yonder mountain, never heading the thorns which prick your feet nor the wild beasts that may be lurking in the bushes to devour you. When once you have gained the top of the mountain you will find yourselves in possession of great happiness.

Gabe was ecstatic when he read these words. “See, Sam,” he cried, “here lies the road to our happiness. We should start at once and see if what the hologram says is true.”

Sam, however, was very doubtful. “Perhaps,” he answered, “this hologram is but a joke of some kid wanting to video us. Perhaps the current of the stream runs too swiftly for any man to swim it. And why would I want to swim through when my iPhone is not waterproof. I for one will have no part in it.”

Nevertheless, Gabe was not discouraged, not telling Sam that his phone was a Samsung Galaxy S7 and is waterproof. “I am always looking for a challenge,” he replied, “and if you will not go with me, I must go alone. So the two friends embraced, and Sam left in his self-driving car that had been charging all morning from the sun.

Gabe dove into the stream and soon found himself in the midst of a whirlpool. He bravely kept swimming and finally reached the other side.

After resting a few moments on the beach, he lifted the marble lion with one mighty effort, and with one run reached the top of the mountain. Here he saw to his great surprise that he was standing before the gates of a beautiful city. He could see skyscrapers and cars hovering from one building to the next.

Stuck in a gaze at the magnificent, he saw all the cars stop what they were doing and start zooming towards the gate. The whistles of the hover cars echoed through the mountain side and the cars stopped before the gate.

All of the people poured out of the city gates with great smiles. A group of young men came up and knelt before him, saying, “Brave stranger, we beseech thee to put on this super suit which we are bringing, and, mounted upon this hover car, ride back with thy subjects to the city.”

Gabe, who could not believe his ears, begged them to explain how he could be the king of such an advanced society that he has no knowledge of. The men replied, “Whenever our king dies, we place upon the hologram by the river the message which you have read. Then we wait patiently until a traveler passes by who is brave enough to undertake the bold venture. We have been during this for thousands of years and no king has yet to fail us because only a man who is fearless of heart and dauntless of purpose would take on this challenge.”

A View from his Hover Car Wikimedia Commons

Author’s Note: I read The Two Travelers from the Bidpai unit. In the original story, the travelers were going by camel and needed to rest in the shade after traveling through a desert all day. They happened upon a stone in the morning with the same description. The second traveler did not want to take the journey because he thought that the journey was impossible and that nothing would be on the other side. So he left on his camel and parted ways with his lifelong friend and traveling buddy.

In my story, I kept the description of the message the same and changed how it appeared in from of them. I changed it to a hologram rather than a stone. I made everything more futuristic except for the challenge at hand. I kept that the same to show that the city has been doing this challenge for centuries on centuries. Instead the city rumbling and bumbling over to the city gate, I had them hover of in their futuristic cars. I also decided to keep the reasoning for why he should be king pretty much the same to show that the tradition has been around for centuries. This shows that even as technology advances, we still stick to our roots.

Bibliography: The Two Travelers, a story from The Tortoise and the Geese and Other Fables of Bidpai by Maude Barrows Dutton, with illustrations by E. Boyd Smith, 1908.

Reading Notes: The Hare, the Fox, and the Wolf

In The Hare, the Fox, and the Wolf, I am going to focus on the Fox. His greatest strength is his cleverness and trickery. He uses his weakness of being fat and slow to persuade the hare into his lair. The Hare thinks that he is going to trick the Fox, but little does the Hare know that the Fox has it all planned out. The Fox agrees to what the Hare has to say, but says he needs to sweep out the corners and place his best carpet down. He instead replaces the sticks holding up the carpet with straw that so when the Wolf and Hare come in; they will fall through and be trapped.

A Fox and a Hare Wikimedia Commons

Bibliography: The Hare, the Fox, and the Wolf comes from The Tortoise and the Geese and Other Fables of Bidpai by Maude Barrows Dutton, with illustrations by E. Boyd Smith, 1908.

Reading Notes: The Two Travelers

In The Two Travelers, the travelers are met by a challenge at the very beginning and one takes the easy road while the other dives right in and swims across the stream to the other side. This character shows great bravery in jumping without knowing what is directly in front of him. I think I could keep him the same, but change why he is willing to jump in a little with a 21st century twist. I could also change the challenge a little bit to make it more of something that could happen today.

Sergeant Samuel Tice swimming across a river 26th MEU 

Bibliography: The Two Travelers is from The Tortoise and the Geese and Other Fables of Bidpai by Maude Barrows Dutton,with illustrations by E. Boyd Smith, 1908.

Story: The First Voyage of Sindbad

They happen upon an island that is just above sea level. Part of the crew gets out to walk around and check it out. They didn’t notice anything on the island so some of the crew got some wood out and decided to start a fire. After the fire was lit, the island started to shake and tremble. Sindbad is yelling for everyone to get back on the vessel. Everyone is running over there and about half of the crew makes it on the vessel when what they now know is a whale plunges into the water leaving Sindbad and half the crew to die. Sindbad struggling to stay afloat grabs onto a piece of wood that was used to start the fire.

After floating for several hours, he sees a storm brewing and approaching him. The storm is bringing big and heavy waves. He rides over the first wave, but gets smothered by the second, dunking him under water. Struggling for his life, he clenched onto the piece of wood and swam up until making above the monstrous wave and throwing up the water he swallowed. He even coughed up some blood. The storm finally passes after a while and he thinks he’s in the clear.

The blood he coughed up attracted some sharks. They surround him and are swimming in circles around him. Does he try and fight them or just remain calm and hope they don’t attack him? Luckily, Sindbad chose the latter. After swimming around him for a bit the sharks realized that he wouldn’t be tasty at all and swam off.

Exhausted and relieved at the sharks’ departure, he clenched onto the wood and fell asleep. After sleeping for a couple of hours, he had floated near a river. He swam over there and found natives to the island. They took him in and fed him.

Sindbad Floating away with his Riches Wikimedia Commons

Author's Note: I read the First Voyage of Sindbad and noticed that when the whale left him to float on the water with just a log of wood, the story just went straight to him finding an island. Did he have any struggles while on the water? It just said he was exhausted and was ready to get to the island. I added what happened to him from the whale to the island. 

Bibliography: The Voyages of Sindbad from The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898).

Reading Notes: Sindbad's Fifth Voyage

On Sindbad's fifth voyage the happen upon an unknown island that they find to be uninhabited. The story is told from the point of view of Sindbad. They happen upon an unhatched Roc egg and the crew decided to kill it and feast on it. At this point the two parents of the egg come down and want to reek havoc. The crew thinks they get away to only find the birds have come back with a rock to drop on their vessel. When retelling this story, I think I could tell the story from the perspective of the birds. It would be interesting to have their reactions and their interactions with each other.

The Crew takes the Baby Roc's Life Wikimedia Commons

Bibliography: The Voyages of Sindbad from The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898).

Reading Notes: Sindbad's First Voyage

Sindbad's first voyage is only necessary because he was foolish with his inheritance and wanted to bring riches to his family. He goes as a merchant and is selling goods island to island. They happen on an island that is only slightly above sea level. At this point, you know something is going to get bad just merely by that last sentence. They land and walk around a bit before starting a fire. Immediately after starting the fire, the 'island' begins to tremble. At this point, you must be thinking that maybe it is not an island after all. And you would be correct as the island is actually a whale and the whale plunges into the water leaving Sindbad to only hold afloat by a piece of wood. The next part of the story is him landing on an island and being treated well before finding his crew again and getting rich. But what happens from the whale to the island. There was little talk about him floating on a piece of wood to the island. When retelling this story, I could focus on this gap and describe in detail what Sindbad went through.

Floating on Wood Pexels

Bibliography: The Voyages of Sindbad from The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898).