Reading Notes: Tibetan Folk Tales, Reading A
The story that I chose to do reading notes for this post is “The Ingratitude of Man” by A.L. Shelton (1925). I chose this story because I really enjoyed the message of the story. The story is about a man, a crow, a rat, and a snake falling off a cliff and they get saved by a passing traveler. They all promise to help the traveler in the future in return for saving them. The traveler thought that the rat, the crow, and the snake would not be able to help him while the man would be able to. However, the three animals ended up helping him in the end while the man ended up betraying him. This story along with the others have this Tibetan proverb or message that the story shows or proves throughout the story. The stories of this section include both people and animals, but the unique thing is that the people and animals are able to communicate between one another. Another thing that many of these stories use people and places in the story that relate to Tibetan Buddhism such as the lamas (teacher of Tibetan Buddhism) in this story as the “wiseman”. This specific story is interesting because there is a magical aspect to the story at the end where the snake is actually magical and ends up helping the man out using its powers. The language used in this story is more modern than other stories in my opinion as it doesn’t really have older terms or language style typically to give off an older setting.
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