At first, I thought The Dead Mother was sweet because the mother was still taking care of her baby, even though she had passed away. I thought it was a good way to illustrate the strong love between a mother and child. However, towards the end it got kind of eerie. It sounded really freaky when the other characters are sleeping in the room and they see the dead mother come in. Also, it got super weird when the baby was dead at the end. It made me kind of sad honestly.
The Treasure was very intriguing to me because I am wondering what values the Russians had that caused this story to be written. I am curious what the motivation of the author was. Maybe to talk about how God punishes the greediness of others? I felt bad for the old man that the people were not interested in helping him until he had money. Basically, it painted the Russians as very greedy and selfish people to me. Also, the pope was so corrupt! He is supposed to be the spiritual leader, but he definitely did not seem to be living according to the Bible. One thing I would like to look up is the values that the Russian people have because it may give some insight to the stories. Also, I am curious what beliefs the Russians typically have. If it is Christianity or Catholicism, then the Pope does not uphold the values that the Bible teaches. However, if it is a different belief system, then maybe he does.
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| (The pot of gold that the old man found) |
Friday was pretty confusing to me since I did not understand the importance of Mother Friday. I tried to look it up but didn't really find anything online. The story reminded me though of how the Sabbath is to be kept holy and a day of rest in Christian faith. I'm wondering if Friday is seen as a day of rest out of respect for the saints? I wish there was more information on this online! I am very intrigued by why a woman would get punished for spinning flax on Friday.
The Leshy was a very dark story! Basically it seems like the demon kidnapped the girl and held her hostage for 3 years. During that time, she seemed to have forgotten her life with her family. It reminded me of the hostage stories you hear of happening during real life where the person starts thinking that their captive life is normal and I guess the trauma causes them to totally suppress memories of their life before. It really seemed eerie to me and I'm once again curious why the Russians created a folktale about this. Was it supposed to be a warning to girls to not walk alone in the forest? This aspect also reminded me of The Little Red Riding Hood.
Overall, I have so far really enjoyed the Russian Folktales. I feel a little weird about how much I liked reading them since a lot of them were about death or other dark topics. It was a nice change of pace though from some of the stories of the past. Also, they were very easy to understand which allowed me to focus on reading the stories rather than figuring out the language, etc. I am excited to read the second half later today!
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