Jewish Fairy Tales
The Giant of the Flood:
Noah has decreed that all animals who can lie down may enter, but those who stand cannot. This made me wonder - did he permit snakes to enter? Snakes cannot truly lie down or stand up, so did he take them aboard?
The giant Og wants to also be saved from the flood and tricks Noah into harnessing a Unicorn to the boat so that he can ride it and be saved from the flood waters. Noah agrees to feed him, but says that in doing so, Og will have to agree to be a servant of Noah’s descendants. Being a giant, Og is naturally lazy. When the flood finally ends he’s put to work building houses for the humans. He eventually becomes the king of Bashan and tries to wipe out the Israelites by crushing them with a mountain, but he mountain crumbles and falls on top of him and then Moses slashes his ankle with a sword, thereby killing him.
Through many of these stories the Unicorn is mentioned and described as a gigantic beast, certainly big enough to hold a giant. Yet I’ve read tales of Unicorns in other legends which describe them as only a little bigger than horses. Where’s the consistency?
The Beggar King:
This story was a great lesson in humility. After ripping out a page from the Bible which offended him by proclaiming that wealth and legacy are not forever, the King Hagag goes out hunting a stag. He strips his robes to follow the stag across the river into a thicket and instead finds a young man in deerskin. The young man claims to be a genie and says he’ll teach him a lesson in humility. So, after the genie steals the king’s clothes and assumes his role, King Hagag is forced to wander the streets begging and eventually loses all hope at ever regaining the throne. Thus he becomes a guide for a group of beggars.
The genie-cum-King holds a feast for all the beggars of the land and when King Hagag attends, he deems him as having learned his lesson and trades robes with him, promising the the blind shall continue to be guided. After that, King Hagag rules with much more compassion and wisdom.
The Quarrel of the Cat and the Dog:
This is a bit of an origin story on how the cat and dog came to hate each other. In the beginning, cat and dog were the best of friends, but winter came and food became scarce. Cat decided they should part and go each other’s separate ways to make finding food easier. Dog was reluctant, but complied with Cats’ wishes. Cat added that they should never cross paths again and told Dog she was headed to Adam’s house to catch mice for her food. Dog plodded away disconsolately.
He spent many months trying to find a good place to call home and had run-ins with starvation, exhaustion, wild animals, and cold. He finally was given shelter at a humans’ house but, after discovering it was Adam’s home, refused to stay because Cat lived there and would treat him with contempt. Despite Adam trying to make both animals live together peacefully, Dog went to go live with Seth and that’s why Dog and Cat can never live together.
I find this story amusing because I’ve always lived with both cats and dogs who get along great with each other. They might fight every now and again, but ultimately they remain very good pals.
What quarrel? I see no quarrel here.
Image Credit: Roger H. Goun
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