Week 12 Essay: Twenty-Two Goblins Review

This week, I chose to read the Twenty-Two Goblins reading unit. Unlike last week, I actually read the whole reading unit this time, and I really enjoyed the stories. If I find myself in a position where I can only do half of the reading assignment in the next couple of weeks, I will probably go back and read the rest of the Khasi Folktales. In this essay, I plan to summarize and give feedback about the Twenty-Two Goblins reading unit to hopefully convince others to read through it if they haven’t already.

I originally chose this reading unit because the description mentioned that it would contain a variety of riddles. I really enjoyed the section of the Mahabharata in which Yudhistira had to answer the Yaksha’s riddles. In fact, I recreated that story for my week 10 storytelling post. When I started reading this unit, I hoped to write a similar story for this week’s storytelling post, but I ended up being really busy yesterday and wasn’t able to get around to that.

The basic summary of this story is that there is a monk who brings a king fruits that contain priceless gems. For many days, the monk brings the king these gifts but the king didn’t actually eat the fruit, so he never noticed the gems within. When the king notices the gems in one of the fruits, he goes to the pile of fruits from the previous days and collects quite an assortment of priceless gems. The king asks the monk why he would bring these gems as gifts, and the monk admits that he needs a favor. In order for the monk to perform a mysterious ritual, he needs the king to fetch a body.

When the king reaches the body, he finds that a goblin lives within it. As he is returning the body to the monk, the goblin tells the king that they are going to play a game of riddles. Each time that the king answers a riddle correctly, the goblin will return the body back to its original position. However, if the king knows the answer to a riddle and does not offer it, then his head will explode. So the king is in a very interesting position: the only way that he can fulfill his promise to the monk is if he’s beaten in this game of riddles. The story concludes with an unexpected twist on the overall situation, but I don’t want to give away the surprise.

Throughout the stories, there are several references to the Ramayana. My favorite riddle was The Snake’s Poison and my least favorite was The Three Delicate Wives. Overall, this was a very entertaining and fun reading unit. I would definitely recommend reading the Twenty-Two Goblins.

 

Follow this link to find the original stories:

http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/myth-folklore-unit-twenty-two-goblins.html

 

Image Information:

(Goblin: WoWWiki)