In the second half of the reading you get the conclusion to the goblin, king, and monk tale. The goblin continues to tell the king puzzle stories in an effort to tire him so that he will give up. Twenty one stories the goblin tells the king but he will not budge continuing to move forward. Eventually Stockholm Syndrome kicks in and the goblin grows fond of the king. Because of this he tells the king his Great Puzzle where a father and son marry a daughter and mother respectively. The goblin wants the king to tell him how their children would be related. He cannot and so he is able to continue his journey back to the monk.
The goblin realizes
that because his Great Puzzle is so great that he will now be taken
to the monk where he will be worshiped and the king will be
sacrificed so that the monk can become king of the faeries. Because
the goblin grew fond of the king during his storytelling the goblin
decides to tell the king what the treacherous monk is trying to do.
He tells the king that the monk will ask him to lay down so that he
can cut his head off but the king should ask the monk to show him how
so that he can cut the monk’s head off and he himself can become
king of the faeries. When the king finally delivers the body all
comes to pass as the goblin said it would and the king kills the monk
thus becoming king of the faeries.
I thought there were some interesting character dynamics in the story. I found it interesting how quickly the king believed the goblin and killed the monk. He just took the goblin’s word as true. Maybe he was motivated by his own desire to become king of the faeries. The monk does not get much “screen time” but he does not seem evil in the story until he begins to worship the goblin. I think when I retell the story I will switch it up to make the monk good to play with the characters more.
I thought there were some interesting character dynamics in the story. I found it interesting how quickly the king believed the goblin and killed the monk. He just took the goblin’s word as true. Maybe he was motivated by his own desire to become king of the faeries. The monk does not get much “screen time” but he does not seem evil in the story until he begins to worship the goblin. I think when I retell the story I will switch it up to make the monk good to play with the characters more.
Bibliography: These stories in Twenty-Two Goblins come from Arthur Ryder’s translation of the Sanskrit Vetālapañcaviṃśati.
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