Essay for Week 5: How About a Riddle?

Kobold by JNL via Wikimedia Commons

I absolutely loved the Twenty-Two Goblins unit! It was a really great read! I like to try to solve puzzles and this was a lot of different riddles I had never heard before. One of my favorite things throughout this unit was the similes and metaphors. In the Introduction there is great metaphor, "A brave man's heart is harder than a diamond, and nothing makes it tremble." I thought that was beautiful writing. It is saying that nothing can frighten a brave man. One of my favorite stories in this unit was The Snake's Venom. I really liked the king's answer to the goblins riddle. There really was no one to blame for the Brahman's murder than the Brahman himself. The women was just trying to feed him, the hawk was just doing it's job, and the snake was dying and had no control of his actions.  The Brahman was not paying attention to what he was eating so he truly could not blame anyone for his untimely death than himself. One thing I did not like about this unit is we never figure out what exactly happened to the Brahman's wife. She just disappears and you never hear about her again. My guess is that she did end up dying. My least favorite story from this unit would probably be The Old Hermit. I do not like that the hermit took the body of the dead boy that everyone loved. I thought that was really inconsiderate to the family that was in mourning because he basically said "hey I am alive, now I have got to go." I mean if that was one of my family members I would be in complete shock and at first not believe what I was seeing. Then I would probably start crying and hug him and never let him go. Him taking that body also sounds very invasive and selfish. He only took that body so he could be young again and continue learning magic. He should have just let nature take its course and when God was ready for him, He would take him away.