These chapters of the overarching story went along like the previous grouping. Nothing truly progressed here until the last two chapters. This does not fit well to retell that part of the narrative. I think I'll spend most time focusing on the individual puzzles and riddles to gather what I need to retell this story.
Most of the puzzles from this half went along in a very similar way to the original grouping. Very often, there's a love story or marriage aspect to the stories. However, the first part has more groups of men seeking a woman, for instance. The final puzzles all seemed fairly unique from the others. While it makes for a more interesting read, it makes it harder to tie them together to retell or organize them into a greater narrative.
There were a couple of events within these riddles that caught my attention, however, and some were nearly impossible to predict because of the seemingly outrageous quality of the events. For instance, the daughter of the merchant falling in love with the thief after little to no contact with him. He was literally on his way to being executed. That seemed a little crazy to me. Also, the general offering up his wife to the king (as if she was some sort of chattel, ugh). Thankfully, the king was too noble to accept such a gift. So he died. Literally withered away and died. That in and of itself was shocking, but there's a cherry on top when the general decides to kill himself out of service to the dead king. Fascinating.
What really ground my gears was the fact that we never got an answer to the riddle that the king was stumped on! I can't say that I would have gotten all of the riddles thus far correct, like the king, but this one truly stumped me and sort of shut my brain down. I would have loved to hear how exactly that offspring would be related to the two pairs.
Also with this specific story, why couldn't the father and son just marry who would be appropriate? Why in the world would they cling to a decision they made based on SHOE SIZE? I digress.
(Hawk with a snake, web source: Pixabay)
No comments:
Post a Comment