Reading Notes: Indian Fairy Tales, Part A

Indian Fairy Tales

The Magic Fiddle: Story source: Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by Joh nD. Batten (1912).

• Story starts introducing the family of seven brothers and one sister
• The brothers were married, but the sister did all of the cooking
• This made the wives bitter and they came up with a plan to get rid of her so that one of them could have the position
• They called upon the Bonga and asked that when the sister went out to fill the pitcher for water, that the water in the river would disappear and slowly reappear 
• This would delay the sister
• They also told the Bonga that the sister would then be his
• The sister went to find the water and the river did just as the wives asked from the Bonga
• The river was dry and slowly refilled 
• At each point at which the river refilled, the sister was frightened and cried out to her brother the the pitcher would not fill 
• This served at a good repetition in the story
• Eventually, the water reached the length of her body and the pitcher began to fill up
• However, this caused her to drown
• The Bonga transformed the sister into a bamboo 
• One day a Yogi wanted to cut down the bamboo and use it to make a fiddle
• He brought an axe to cut it down and the bamboo told the Yogi to not cut at the root and cut higher up
• This continued, however, the bamboo reversed the order several times
• This was also a good source of repetition
• He cut down the bamboo and made the fiddle
• The fiddle sounded beautiful
• The Yogi took it and played for the Bonga girl's brothers and caused them to cry
• The oldest brother wanted to buy it but the Yogi refused
• The village chief asked to buy it too but the Yogi said no
• Instead, they offered the Yogi some wine and took the fiddle when he was drunk
• The chief's son would play the fiddle daily
• When everyone was gone, the sister would come out of the fiddle, prepare the meal, place the king's meal under his bed, and reenter the fiddle
• The young chief wanted to know who was doing this and hif in a pile of wood to figure it out
• the sister came out and did her usual things and the young chief caught her in action
• They began to talk lovingly to one another
• The girl's family became poor and came to visit the chief's house
• The family didn't recognize her, and she served them food
• She sat down and began yelling at them for treating her so poorly
• That's all she did for revenge

• I like how she was not violent in her revenge
• I also appreciate the repetition present in the story and think it is very fitting

(The sister trying to fill the pitcher in the dry river. Source: Magic Fiddle from the Indian Fairy Tales Unit)