Sadko

Play one of these well for the King of the Blue Seas, and he'll give you fish!

Greetings, readers. This is my 100th blog post! Thank you for sticking with me. I've enjoyed learning new stories from around the world and growing my skills trying to write these tales of wonder and magic from long ago into today's world. I hope you've enjoyed them as well.

This week's fairy tale comes from Russia. Sadko is a fantastic musician and manages to make his fortune with a bit of trickery. Click the link to read the story and then read below with me to analyze it.

I'm impressed at Sadko's tenacity. I understand that if he doesn't have anything to do, he gets bored, but if I played at a lake all day and the lake scared me at dusk, I probably wouldn't go near it again. Sadko goes back to the lake two more days and plays all day. I'm just glad that the guy who came out of the lake was glad to see Sadko and had been enjoying his music. It would have been a completely different story if the King of the Blue Seas hadn't enjoyed the music, or if Sadko had somehow called a monster to him with his music. Although, being able to call a monster out of a lake could have its uses as well.

I have to wonder if the lake always had fish with gold fins in it, or if the King of the Blue Seas created them just for Sadko. If the lake had always had them, why hadn't anyone else caught one before? Maybe they're just better at avoiding being caught. Or the King of the Blue Seas likes those fish so usually he won't let them be taken away. That would mean he really enjoyed Sadko's music and felt very indebted to him. Then again, I suppose it's only three fish in exchange for the deepest wish of Sadko's heart. I wonder if Sadko went back out to the lake to play again occasionally after he was a successful merchant. It's a good thing Sadko knew how to run all of those markets well so he could keep making money. Although, I wonder how the town's economy handled that monopoly....

Lastly, I have to wonder about the party the King of the Blue Seas was throwing. Did he not plan for musicians? Or did Sadko's music just sound better than anything the King of the Blue Seas could find underwater? We're not going to worry about the difficulty of sound from the seashore traveling underwater. There's probably magic, or amazing hearing involved there. Or both, I suppose. I wonder if the musicians hired for that feast were mad at Sadko stealing their gig, or if they're planning on asking him to teach them to play better. Hopefully those musicians were still able to earn a living afterward either way.

The moral of this story is that even if you can't find a job, someone will appreciate your talents. Alternatively, if you're playing music and a lake starts to churn and get scary, keep playing. Something interesting is sure to happen.

Have a different moral? Wonder about the life below the waves in Lake Ilmen? Have a story you want me to talk about? Comment below!