Week 5 Story: Riddle Me This

Riddle Me This
(click the link to read!)

(Calvary Cemetery, Queens, New York on Wikipedia)

Let me know your result in the comments, if you'd like!

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Author's Note: This week I wanted to re-tell a few of the riddles from the Twenty-Two goblins unit. Because of my Project, I have been learning how to use Twinery to create branching stories, so I thought this was the perfect practice. 

In the original stories, there is a King who is sent by a monk to bring a body containing a goblin back. The King gets the body, but the goblin tells him riddles. If the king answers correctly, the goblin goes back to his tree. The king repeats this cycle, you guessed it, twenty-two times. The last riddle stumps the King, and he is finally able to continue. In the original story, the goblin warns the king that the monk will try to kill him to gain power, and advises the king on how to kill the monk instead. In my interactive story, I took those parts out because it was getting a little long. 

Bibliography: Sanskrit Vetālapañcaviṃśati translated by Arthur Ryder

Reading Notes: Twenty-Two Goblins, Part B

Part B of these stories might have followed the same pattern of riddle, correct answer, goblin escaping, repeat; however, these riddles had a different sort of pattern from the ones in Part A. These were more focused on "here is what happens, who is to blame/why did this happen?" Overall, I think I liked this set of stories more. The last one also had my head spinning so I wrote out the story and I think the children would simultaneously be each other's uncles/aunts and nieces/nephews.

(Diagram of the Family Tree made by me)

I feel a bit more inspired after reading Part B on what I might do for storytelling. I think I want to practice with Twinery and made a story that way. The stories would be written and someone could click the answer they want and the paths would move accordingly. The only thing is I don't have something concrete worked out for someone answering incorrectly on purpose. Maybe I can plan this week and figure something out.

Bibliography: Sanskrit Vetālapañcaviṃśati translated by Arthur Ryder

Reading Notes: Twenty-Two Goblins, Part A

For reading A of this week, there was definitely a theme of "to which should the girl be given"  or "which one is the cleverest/bravest." I enjoyed reading these riddles and even managed to guess 3 of the 7 correctly!

In all honesty, I'm not sure what to say about these stories. I liked reading them, but nothing struck me as a "wow!" sort of moment, and I didn't think of any creative ideas about possible retellings. I chose this unit because I love riddles and I wanted to read a few. Maybe when I retell the story I will come up with very different riddles.

I do feel bad for the wise King because he has to go back and get the goblin so many times. I wonder if the conclusion is him giving up and his head exploding, or if the goblin finally asks a riddle the King cannot answer. After twenty-two times of retrieving a body, I'm not sure I could handle it any more.

I also like the parallel structure within the stories. Like when the three brothers are tested about their expertise in Food, Women, Cotton. That sort of structure helps the story flowing nicely and I think I'll definitely make use of it.

(The goblin in the tree)

Bibliography: Sanskrit Vetālapañcaviṃśati translated by Arthur Ryder