Covetousness:
This story was short, but was packed full of morals. In the end, almost all the characters featured in it died due to their lack of foresight and good morals. Keep in mind that all these stories are taking place in the same vicinity.
A hunter strings up a bow which will kill any animal that triggers the string loosing. First it kills a bear. A fox comes along, rejoices at all the meat he can eat (bear meat is pretty good; I can testify to this), and tries to undo the bow string so no other animals are killed. In doing this, he himself is killed. The moral of this is that, ‘one should not be greedy when there is already plenty.’ Personally, I think this is a poor way of presenting this lesson, but I didn’t write the tale.
The second moral comes in the form of an elephant attempting to jump like a rabbit he sees hopping along in a gulley. In doing this, his immense weight causes a large boulder to fall and crush him. The moral of this is, ‘Don’t do what you are not fit enough for (fitted for).” While this might be harder to view in terms of humans (seeing as how we’re of one single species, whereas the elephant and rabbit are not), it is nonetheless a good moral that (hopefully) stems from common sense.
The third moral is basically, ‘Work together, don’t be lazy.’ Seven robbers come across all these dead animals, rejoice at the meat, and start the cook it. Seeing as how they need water, they gripe and fight about who is going to go get it. Finally, four men agree to it and go to fetch the water while three stay back and cook the meat. Both parties decide to poison the other and nobody survives. The area becomes a massive multi-species graveyard.
Overall, I was pleased with this story. In 500 words it summed up three great morals, all having to do with the perils and consequences of covetousness.
Now just imagine this guy trying to hop like a bunny.
Image: Audubon Institute
This story was… odd. I didn’t like the way it was told because it transitioned too quickly from one event to the next without much leeway. The morals weren’t nearly as good as the first story either.
A man is told by his dying father two rules he should live by to be happy in life. The first is to not trust his wife with any secrets until after she has borne him ten children. Ten children? Yikes. Ain’t nobody got time for that. The second is that he should not trust a man if he has light colored eyes.
So his father dies, he marries a woman and she soon bears him a son. So pleased is he by this, he tells her some secrets anyway. He also has five friends, only one of which who has dark-colored eyes.
Wanting to see if what his father told him was true, he spends good money on a hog on the way home, kills it, puts it in trousers and tells his wife he’s killed a man when he gets home. They bury him in the pond together. Soon thereafter they get into a fight and she tells the official about the man he killed. He’s soon put in jail and the only one of his friends to bail him out is the dark-eyed one (with some pretty heavy bail money).
The man, once freed, tells the official that it’s really just a hog in the lake and he talks about the test he put his wife and friends through to see if they were trustworthy. The official, so impressed by his wisdom, gives the man presents and praise. How is any of this realistic? A guy plays an elaborate prank on his wife and friends and gets promoted to be a chief? Out of most of the fairy tales I’ve read, this story is not only lacking in moral, but also the most unrealistic. Good thing it's just a fairy tale.
Bibliography
Title: "Covetousness" and "The Man with Five Friends with different colored eyes"
Book: Tibetan Folk Tales
Author: A.L Shelton
Year: 1925
Read the stories here!
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