The Dervish and the Three Coins

For the low, low price of three coins, you can get four pieces of wisdom!

Hello, reader. Since it's still winter, I thought we'd look at a tale from Turkey where it's warmer. Today's tale is The Dervish and the Three Coins. We learn several life lessons in this tale.

As this story opens, we have a merchant who is not good at managing his money. When he's down to just three coins, he takes all of his money and leaves his family. So far, I'm not seeing a great guy. Because of his shame, he abandons his family and leaves them with nothing. He needs to get his priorities checked. Then, when he finds a dervish, the merchant gives over all of his money to learn some wisdom. This worked out well for him in this story, but I was pretty worried for the merchant's family for a moment. I'm guessing the dervish was trying to get the merchant to see that wisdom is more useful than money, but it could have ended pretty badly for our main character.

As it turned out, it worked out really well for our merchant. Remembering the four pieces of advice the dervish gave him, the merchant was able to make much more money and return home a rich man. By this point, he had been gone for several days with no word to his family, so when the merchant meets a neighbor on the way home and he learns that his wife is looking at other men, I wasn't too surprised.

Let's look at this from her perspective. She probably had to assume he was dead and in order to keep her family alive, she needed to be married to someone, or go live with someone in her family. There was a real sleezeball who apparently started courting her just about the day her husband left. So, this woman's sister took her in. It was the closest thing to a restraining order they could get. Thank goodness for kind-hearted sisters, otherwise this story would have gotten very complicated.

While we can learn the four morals, or pieces of wisdom, the merchant learned, I prefer to think the moral is: Manage your business well and life will be a lot easier.

The Little Girl and the Winter Whirlwinds

I imagine this is what Frosty Winter Witch rides.

Hello, reader. Since the winter solstice just happened, I thought we'd look at a tale about winter today. The Little Girl and the Winter Whirlwinds is a sweet story about a village of cowards. It comes from another fairy tale blog, so it's good to support them.

When winter stays too long, the people in the village at the bottom of the mountain have a decision to make: someone has to go up the mountain and find out what's going on with Father Christmas. An old man starts to volunteer and then realized that he's too old. His granddaughter offers to go instead. The other villagers kick up a fuss, but no one else offers to go. That is why I say it's a village of cowards. They let a little girl climb a mountain by herself. At least the other children give her a coat and such so she doesn't have to rely solely on her warm heart.

The little girl is protected by her warm heart, until Frosty Winter Witch plays on that and sings a lullaby that the orphan girl's mother used to sing and lulls the girl to sleep. The girl's warm heart protected her from whirlwinds and blizzards, but not hypothermia. Fortunately, after the mountain animals find her and revive her the rest of the journey is easy. Father Christmas is only too happy to bring spring back and the girl returns to her village. I kind of wanted her to stay with Father Christmas since she proved herself to be so tough yet kind. I suppose her village would be in a lot of trouble without her, though.

The moral this week I suppose is that if winter goes on too long, climb a mountain and it will be done by the time you come home. But only if you have a warm heart.

Thumbelina

Come live in the marsh with a toad you just met. It'll be great!

This week's tale is long story about a tiny girl. Thumbelina is a piece by Hans Christian Anderson, which makes the country of the week Denmark. There is so much to dig into in this story, but I'll try to keep it light.

Thumbelina, or Tiny as she's also called, is pulled from one part of the story to another. She's kidnapped twice and is almost married off three times. Her life is not easy. She goes from living a sheltered life with her mom, to fending for herself in the forest. The only time Tiny takes control of her life is when she agrees to leave with the swallow whose life she saved.

Throughout the story, Tiny's beauty is a curse to her. It's why she gets kidnapped so often and is why so many animals want to marry her. The only time it is a good thing for her is at the end of the story when she meets the fairy king. Only then, when she wants to marry someone, does it help her that she's attractive. Marrying someone based only on their looks is problematic, but we don't have space to dive into that here. I'm sure it worked out fine for them.

I suppose a moral for this story could be, "Try not to be pretty when times are tough," but I don't like that moral. Instead, let's say, "When all sorts of animals are trying to marry you, hold out for the Fairy King who lives where it's always warm."