Week 5 Reading Diary: Twenty-Two Goblins

Here are a few of my favorite stories from Twenty-Two Goblins

Introduction The beginning of the tale tells of a brave king, King Victory, who discovers that a monk who frequently brings him a gift of fruit has actually been hiding gems inside. In return for the monk's generosity, the king promises the monk to help him with a task. As asked, the king travels to the cemetery at midnight to meet the monk underneath the fig tree. The monk tasks the king with retrieving a corpse from a nearby tree, but when he does, it speaks to him! The "goblin" hiding in the corpse begins to tell the king a story.

Brave, Wise, Clever In this story told by the goblin, a princess named Moonlight says that she will only marry a brave man, a wise man, or a clever man. When it is her time to marry, her mother, her brother, and her father find three different brave, wise, and clever men and each promise her to one of them, not knowing that the other two had already promised her to someone else. When the princess is kidnapped, and the wise man finds where she is, the clever man gets them there, and the brave man kills her kidnapper. The king correctly decides that the princess should marry the brave man.

The Three Delicate Wives Once again, the goblin tells the King another story. This time, the goblin tells of a king named Virtue-banner who had three princesses as wives. One of his wives is wounded by a falling lotus-petal, while another is burned by  moonbeams! The final wife is hurt by a sound in the distance. The goblin puzzles King Victory which princess was the most delicate, and he correctly answers the wife hurt by sound.

The Girl and the Thief This story tells the tale of a grand merchant's daughter, Pearl, who falls in love with a thief right before he is executed. Pearl had before refused to marry any man, so her father pleaded with the king to release the thief, but it was of no use. The goblin asks King Victory if the thief laughed or wept before his death, and the king correctly answers both.

The Four Brothers This story from the goblin tells of four brothers who each know a different type of "science." One brother can add flesh to bones, the second can add skin and hair to flesh, the third can add eyes and organs and the final brother can bring the organs to life. The four brothers bring a lion to life, which kills them all!