Cautionary Fables & Fairytales: Asia Edition: Old Tales of Magic and Woe

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Authors

Randy Milholland and Andrew Sides and others

Issue Date

2016

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This is a "graphic novel" including, as the beginning T of C shows, 21 stories. Among them is "The Tiger, the Brahmin, and the Jackal" by Randy Milholland and Andrew Sides (177). In this standard Jataka tale, the tiger has promised not to harm a hair on the Brahmin's head. One minute after being released, he pounces on the Brahmin. When asked about his promise, he answers "Your scalp is the one bit I won't eat." The three living things which they consult are a tree, a buffalo, and a jackal. The jackal wisely says at the end "Or perhaps sometimes, some things should just be left alone." To sample the others, I tried "The girl who married a tiger" (80). A young woman finds out that her husband is really a tiger. Through a friendly bird, she notifies her brothers, who bring various things with them to trick the tiger into thinking that they are strong, even monster-like. They rescue their sister. When the tiger comes back to claim her – as always claiming that he will get what he wants or will eat her – they prepare a pit as a trap and let him die in the trap. In the stories I tried, there seem to be frequent transformations between humans and beasts. These are tales of "magic and woe" -- enough so that I doubt I will buy the African or European versions. I did not know that Amazon had its own company for "comixology."

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Comixology: An Amazon Company

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