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Reading Notes: Japanese Fairytales: Part A

(Wooden Fence by Idlir Fida)


The Envious Neighbor by Andrew Lang:

Characters: The old man and old woman, their neighbor, their dog

The old couple: They are a good pair of people. Kind to a fault and honestly a bit too trusting of the people around them.

The neighbor: Very jealous and greedy of what his neighbors got from their dog. Does not respect personal property at all

Dog: just a good boi

Plot: One day the old man is digging in his yard and his dog gets his attention and tries to get him to dig in a particular spot. The old man does so and finds a chest full of golden coins and the couple is now quite wealthy. The neighbor sees this and is jealous so he asks to borrow the dog. He lets the dog loose in his yard but it doesn't find anything for a while. A bit later the dog starts pointing at an area and he digs it up and all he finds are some old smelly bones. This makes him very angry so he goes and kills the dog. He then goes to the old couple and tells them the dog suddenly died and he's very sorry that that happened to it. They believe him and then take their dog and bury it. The dog comes to the old man in a dream and tells him to cut down his tree and make mortar from it. HGe does and whenever he does something to rice they get gold. The neighbor hears about this and asks to borrow the mortar. It doesn't work for him so he burns it. The old man is pretty sad about this but accepts it. The dog comes again in his dream and tells him to take the ashes of the mortar and spread it into the air when the ruler comes around. He does this and the ashes turn into blossoms and the ruler is impressed and gives him more gold. The neighbor tries the same but ends up hurting the ruler and warriors' eyes and ends up in jail.

Setting: The setting is just in whatever town they live in. I don't think the setting would add much to this story.

Things I Could Change: I think retelling this story in a more modern context could be really interesting. It would be cool to see what modern things the neighbor could get jealous of. Maybe social media?

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