Two Sisters and an Old Man

Probably take this one.

Hello, reader. This week, our tale comes from West Africa. Two Sisters and an Old Man has some familiar elements to it, but is still an intriguing tale. Follow the link above to read the story and then ponder it with me below.

To begin with, we have the "good sister" Ranti and the "bad sister" Bisi. Ranti is bullied every day and her mother tells her to return bad behavior with kindness, so Ranti does nothing back. I have to wonder about what else was going on in this house. Did the girls' father not care that one of them was bullying the other? Did Ranti's mother tell her daughter to put up with it because she knew her husband wouldn't do anything to stop it? I wonder what Ranti's mother and Bisi's mother's relationship was like. Obviously it wasn't good if they didn't work together to stop the bullying. In any case, Ranti is building lots of character and muscles by doing the work of two people while Bisi does whatever she wants.

The test was a little different than I expected. I knew Ranti would pass, because she's the good sister and that Bisi would fail because she's the bad sister, but it wasn't quite how I thought. Ranti stopped to give the old man water and washed his sores. Bisi just asked him where the garden was and didn't do anything for him. I had thought that Bisi would be punished for her rudeness and wouldn't get to go the garden, but he still told her where it was. What really interested me was the fruit of this garden. Ranti, following directions, takes one of the rotten fruits with her and gets expensive presents from it. Bisi, not following directions, takes several of the golden fruits and gets all manner of creepy-crawlies from it. The fruits match the girls. Ranti takes the fruit that looks rotten on the outside and is golden and precious inside. Doing that much hard work would probably take away from her looks. I don't think Ranti looked "rotten" but she would have been in the sun much more than her sister, with rough hands, and no real time to take care of herself or her appearance. Bisi, on the other hand, had plenty of time to make herself look pretty, or "golden" but was mean and poisonous on the inside. The girls chose themselves from this garden and had to live with the consequences.

The only thing I wonder is if this adventure changed Bisi at all. Did she learn her lesson, or did she drown in snakes and spiders? Eeeww.

The moral of this story is, if you're following a magic man's advice to get to a magic garden, you should do what he tells you to do once you're there. Alternatively, make sure you open up your treasure outside so if it's bad, you can get away from it.

Have a different moral? Want to see a different story? Comment below!