Review: Egyptian Myths

Title: Egyptian Myths

Editor: Jake Jackson

Genre: Folktales and Mythology

Trigger Warnings: Death (mentions), injury (mentions), bodily fluids (mentions), racism

Back Cover:

The Myths of Ancient Egypt are tied intimately to the presence and natural rhythms of the Nile. With their animalistic mythology, the Egyptians explained the effects of famine, harvest, floods and death by creating a pantheon of gods that still holds our fascination today. This new book of classic tales brings the stories of the ancients to life, from the birth of creation by Ra, the sun god, to the murder of Osiris, and the revenge of Horus. We gain glimpses of the underworld and the afterlife, as the rulers of Egypt claimed lineage from the Gods both worshipped and fashioned by the people of Egypt, at a time when humankind had begun to shape the world around it.

Review:

I like ancient history. I like mythology. I went through a huge phase as a kid where I was OBSESSED with ancient Egypt, and I still find it fascinating. However, for all my interest in ancient Egyptian culture, lifestyles, clothing, architecture, and cultural artifacts, I don’t know a whole lot about the mythology. So I was excited to read a whole book of Egyptian myths.

I now know why Egyptian mythology isn’t among the more popular ones. Unlike the more well-known mythologies (e.g. Greek, Norse), Egyptian primary sources are less about stories and adventures of gods and heroes and more about spells and lists of godly attributes – at least if this book is a representative sample. Most of this book is rather dull and dry. There are translations of spells and ceremonies from the Book of the Dead and the Pyramid Texts, some autobiographical stories that are mostly lists of cool stuff various kings did and stuff servants of kings did for them, hymns to the gods, and translations of inscriptions detailing how awesome so-and-so king was for doing various conquering. A large portion of it was litanies of praises to various gods, entreaties to various gods, lists of the attributes of various gods, lists of attributes and accomplishments of various kings, and a surprisingly large number of inventories. Historically relevant? Yes. Interesting to read? No.

There were a few narrative stories there, and some of them were quite enjoyable. “The Tale of the Two Brothers” especially is exactly what I would expect out of a folktale, and is my favorite out of the book. But even among the stories, so many of them are bogged down with long lists of godly attributes and extensive praise for gods and kings and such that the interesting bits were few and far between. The book did mention at the beginning that some of the translations are less than literal – if you’re going to take liberties with the translation anyway, why not lean into it and revise it to be more interesting to the modern reader? There were also some spots where editor’s commentary replaced or filled in the gaps of the actual primary source, and the text made very little distinction between that. Sometimes it was obvious (e.g. “three lines are missing here” is obviously not part of the original text), but the fact that it didn’t do italics or brackets or anything to indicate when the editor was speaking instead of the actual work made me feel like I couldn’t trust the translations and gave the whole book a vague air of academic dubiousness.

My biggest problem, though, was that I lost confidence in the authority of this book very early. It started when the book described one group of people as “wealyour.” I thought, Oh, cool, a new vocabulary word! I’ll have to look that up in a minute. Then in the next paragraph, it used the word “woryour” where the word “worthy” was obviously supposed to be. And I suddenly realized that someone must have done a search-and-replace on this document to change “thy” to “your” and didn’t actually bother to read through the manuscript again afterwards. It resulted in such wonderful changes as the goddess Nephthys being renamed “Nephyours.” It was riddled with similar small but obvious issues, like using “flea” instead of “flee” – all stuff a copy editor, or even just a final read-through, should have caught.

I don’t have a problem with the actual content of the book as much. Is it a little dull to me, a person with a childhood interest but definitely no interest in serious Egyptology? Yeah, it is. But it’s not the primary sources’ fault they fail to keep the interest of the modern casual reader. If you’re not interested in spells to avoid snake bites in the afterlife, it’s fine to skim those. But despite looking professional (and being part of a whole series on various world mythologies), I find myself unable to trust that this book is true to the source material, and there are obvious mistakes in the text that make it feel like a poorly-researched, poorly-edited self-published book. I have no idea how accurate or trustworthy this book is, but it gave me the sense of being neither. If you are really interested in the finer details of Egyptian mythology, literature, and ritual practice, maybe choose a different book.

Review: The Story Bag

Title: The Story Bag: A Collection of Korean Folktales

Author: Kim So-un (author), Setsu Higashi (translator)

Genre: Folktales

Trigger Warnings: Death, death of parent, death of animals, injury to animals, kidnapping

Back Cover:

The Story Bag, a captivating collection of Korean folk tales compiled by the emininent Korean storyteller, Ms. Kim So-un, is sure to delight the hearts of all children between the ages of eight and 80. Written with earthy wit and pathos, the tales unveil the inevitable foibles of people everywhere and expose the human-like qualities of animals and the animal-like qualities of humans. Pulsating with the rhythm of life and the seasons, these 30 stories transport the reader to a wonderland, where a tiny mouse teaches filial piety to a spoiled child, a blind man can see evil spirits, and fleas drink rice wine. It is somehow deeply reassuring to know that even in present-day politically-divided Korea, these same stories are still being told, just as they have been for generations.

Review:

I’ve read several folktale collections from various regions lately, and this collection has a lot of the seemingly-universal themes of folktales: poor people becoming rich by their cleverness, greedy and cruel people receiving bad fates, kind people helping animals that are often magical beings in disguise and pay back their kindness tenfold. The type of “be kind, don’t be greedy or mean” messages that every culture wants to teach. It also has some of the explanatory stories, telling tales of where earthquakes come from, why the pigeon’s head is blue, and other such natural phenomena.

This collection also has some themes that are more unique to it. Respect for your elders and especially care of your parents is a big theme – “The Blind Mouse,” for example, is all about a girl getting shamed into being less spoiled and doing her childly duties towards her parents. The problems in “The Silver Spoon” all happen because a tutor wasn’t given proper respect by his inferiors. Another theme is to use caution with evil spirits because they will take revenge if you anger them or don’t properly get rid of them.

Some of the ideas in the tales were a little weird to my American mind, though. The moral of “The Disowned Student,” for example, is that the human soul is stored in the fingernails. Which seems inefficient to me, but that’s why I read these kinds of stories – to get exposed to other cultures’ ideas.

Getting shamed into being good was another interesting thing. There are several stories where people are shamed into acting right by other people acting right. My first instinct was that that wouldn’t work, but I live in a society that puts the most value on fierce individualism. Maybe it would be more effective in a culture that values things like respect and filial piety (which came through very clearly in these stories, even if I hadn’t known that Korea is more collectivist). Or maybe the moral is “you act right and don’t worry about people who don’t.”

These tales were almost all short, but despite a few weird translation choices, they were well-written. I learned a bit about life in Korea in the olden days when these stories were developed and a lot about Korean values (and that either there are a lot of tigers in Korea or folktale-tellers just liked tigers as a predatory animal antagonist). Plus all of these stories are just entertaining and perfectly readable just for fun.

Review: The Three Kingdoms

Title: The Three Kingdoms: Russian Folktales from Alexander Afanasyev’s Collection

Curator: Alexander Afanasyev

Genre: Folktales

Trigger Warnings: Death, death of children, death of animals, torture, child abuse

Back Cover:

A collection of thirty-three traditional tales from Russia.

Review:

My only dive into Russian anything so far has been Vita Nostra (which is actually Ukranian, it just became a bestseller in Russia), but I have read a fair bit of folklore and I’m always eager to learn more about folk traditions and new places. So this was an exciting read.

There were a lot of similar themes in this story. Some common occurrences are people “striking the floor” (whatever that means) and turning into birds, men being set impossible tasks and their wise wives telling them to go to bed and solving the problem while they’re asleep, kidnapped princesses in palaces made of precious metals giving magic gifts to wandering folktale protagonists, and clever villains being outwitted by our hero who got help from the people or animals he helped along his journey (although that last one is pretty common across multiple folk traditions).

A few things I found noteworthy about these stories:

• Almost all of the stories were about royalty – often princes and kings, but sometimes a common man who rescues and marries a princess and so becomes royalty. I had expected that there would be more of a focus on the common folk.
• Sometimes the “fool,” lazy person, or cheat came out on top, which I don’t think I’ve read about in any other folktale collection.
• “The Wise Maid and the Seven Robbers” is almost a point-for-point retelling of “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” from the Arabian Nights, just Russia-flavored instead of Middle East-flavored.
• There is a lot of repetition, both in content and theme between stories and in dialogue and actions within stories. Events usually happen in threes, such as a protagonist will sequentially meet three princesses in three palaces and have the same conversation with each, word for word. I’m sure it makes it easier to remember for an oral retelling but it’s a little weird to read.
• Considering that roughly 75% of the protagonists in this book were named Ivan, I think “Ivan” is the Russian version of American and British folktales’ “Jack” – a generic moniker for a character whose adventures matter more than his name.

Almost all of the stories were interesting in their own way (except “Good But Bad,” which was utterly incomprehensible), but they have so many of the same themes that they blend together after a while. I can’t really pick out any that are particular favorites or that I particularly dislike (again, except “Good But Bad”). This collection was fascinating and well-told and I’m glad I read it, but I can’t differentiate much between the different stories it contains.

Review: Folklore and Fairy Tales from Burma

Title: Folklore and Fairy Tales from Burma (Myanmar)

Compiled By: Lynette Spencer

Genre: Folktales

Trigger Warnings: Injury to animals (mention), death of animals (mention)

Back Cover:

The 21 colourful Burmese folk tales in this volume have been retold in English by teachers from the PHAUNG DAW OO MONASTIC EDUCATION HIGH SCHOOL, MANDALAY, Myanmar, formerly Burma. Accompanying the stories are 22 illustrations created by their young pupils. Herein you will find stories like THE CROW IS AS PROUD AS THE PEACOCK, THE THREE SISTERS, THE BLIND BOY, SHIN MWE LON AND MIN NANDA, THE GREEDY KING, A DISRESPECTFUL DAUGHTER and many more.

As with most folk tales with Eastern origins, the stories have deeper meanings hidden beneath what, on the surface, may appear to be a simple story. The morals in these Burmese tales often reoccur in the tales from other cultures’. Such universal themes include traditional family values and respect, still very much to the fore in a country that to a great extent has stood still in time.

Review:

This book was surprisingly short, and most of the stories are less than a page. It read more like a children’s book than anything. But it made sense after reading the afterward – these stories were collected from Burmese schoolteachers, presumably simplified for very young children. Looking at the stories with this context, they really did read like a story for children, conveying the ideas but not the details that make a story truly rich.

The thing that surprised me most was that I’ve heard several of these stories before in Western folklore. King Midas, the goose that laid the golden eggs, and the tortoise and the hare are all told in Burmese versions in this book. I’m curious if those are traditional tales that just happen to be similar, or if Western stories got imported and adopted. (I suspect the latter, but I would like to know.)

I would like to find a more “grown-up” book of Burmese folklore, with all the details and nuance that this children’s version lacked. An academic one with commentary and historical background would probably be worthwhile. This book seems more like a children’s story book or a very brief introduction than anything.

Review: Folktales of Bhutan

Title: Folktales of Bhutan

Author: Kunzang Choden

Genre: Folktales and Mythology

Trigger Warnings: Death, animal death, blood, mild gore, fire, ableism

Back Cover:

Folktales of Bhutan is a collection of thirty-eight folktales and legends and is a first attempt by a Bhutanese to record in English the oral tradition of this kingdom in the eastern Himalayas. All of the stories recounted here were heard by the author when she was a child living in Bumthang in the central part of Bhutan and are the ones that she passes on to her children today, in the spirit of the oral tradition.

In Bhutan’s centuries of self-imposed isolation brought about by both its geographically remote position and political considerations, the Bhutanese oral tradition evolved and thrived. The rugged and awesome terrain and the people’s closeness to nature, together with their philosophy of karmic life cycles, an unquestioning belief in unseen co-inhabitants of the earth like spirits, ghosts and demons and the creative genius of the storytellers culminated in a remarkable repository of tales and legends which were passed on from one generation to the next.

Review:

I know next to nothing about Bhutan, so this book was enjoyable both because I like folktales and because I feel like I learned a bit about Bhutan.

The book starts with a note by the author about her own experiences with Bhutanese storytelling and the country’s storytelling traditions, as well as a little bit about Bhutan as a country. Then it jumps right into the tales, which are short (most of them about three pages long) and entertaining.

Some of them have morals that are easy to figure out (usually along the lines of “don’t be lazy,” although there are a fair number about not being gullible too), some have morals or meanings that the author explains at the end, and some are stories that are either just tales or I’m lacking the cultural context to understand.

There’s a lot of stories of people who outwit demons and/or their enemies with cleverness, quite a few that show kindness to animals being rewarded, and several that are just about interesting adventures. Some of them felt vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on why.

You can also pick up quite a bit about Bhutanese culture from these stories, from Buddhism to anti-demon religious rituals to some of the mythology. Geography also affects the tales a lot – there’s quite a bit involving the mountains, living in and/or crossing them, and traveling to Tibet. I found it all fascinating and I thoroughly enjoyed reading these tales and learning some folklore traditions from Bhutan.

Review: Tales from the Arabian Nights

Title: Tales from the Arabian Nights

Translator: Sir Richard Francis Burton

Genre: Classic/Folklore

Trigger Warnings: Death, blood/gore, misogyny, racism, colorism, antisemitism

Back Cover:

These are the tales that saved the life of Scherehazade, whose husband, the king, executed each of his wives after a single night of marriage. Beginning an enchanting story each evening, Scherehazade always withheld the ending: a thousand and one nights later, her life was spared forever. Full of mischief, valor, ribaldry and romance, “The Arabian Nights” has enthralled readers for centuries. This volume contains the most famous and representative stories from Sir Richard F. Burton’s multi volume translation, and, unlike many editions, is complete unexpurgated. These tales, including “Aladdin or the Wonderful Lamp,” “Sinbad the Sailor,” and “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” have entered into the popular imagination.

Review:

When I picked this book up at my local Half Price Books, I thought it was the complete Arabian Nights. I was wrong – the complete version of Burton’s translation is 16 volumes. This version has only a sampling of the stories, but it’s still almost 1,000 pages long.

Some of these I’d heard before, some of them I hadn’t, and even the ones I had heard were missing a lot of details. For example, you’ve probably heard the story of the fisherman who fishes up a bottle and then tricks the djinn inside into going back in – but have you heard the second half of it, where the fisherman catches magic fish and saves an entire city from a magic spell? I hadn’t.

This volume kept the original translation text from the 1800s, and sometimes I had to figure out what words meant from the context. I didn’t mind that, but I’m sure there are more modern translations you can get if that would bother you.

All the stories were fascinating. Some I enjoyed more than others – “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp” was actually kind of a slog to get through, and the much less well-known “The Story of Two Sisters Who Were Jealous of Their Younger Sister” was probably my favorite – but they were all entertaining reads. Sometimes the plots meander a bit, and it tends to layer stories within stories, which can get confusing, but they’re interesting anyway.

You also get an interesting look at Arabic culture, especially the opulence of royalty/rich people and their views of certain groups of people. For example, there’s a lot of racism (black people are universally slaves and described as “ugly” and “repulsive”) and colorism (the most beautiful people are described as having pure white skin). Women are also either being extremely beautiful objects to be won or irredeemably evil – the only exceptions being a slave girl in “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” and a princess in “The Story of the Two Sisters Who Were Jealous of Their Younger Sister” (both of whose “happy endings” are being married off to male characters).

Some other random things I didn’t realize about the Arabian Nights:

• Scherehazade actually asked to be married to the sultan, she wasn’t randomly picked.
• Scherehazade’s sister was with her and the sultan every night.
• The sultan didn’t decide to permanently not kill Scherehazade – she had to request it after 1001 nights of storytelling and bearing him three kids.
• Aladdin was Chinese (and a total jerk).
• There’s an Arabian version of the “Genghis Khan and his hawk” story (a story I read in elementary school English) – although the person who wrote the version I read was born in 1841 so it’s more likely he based his version on the story in this book and not the other way around.

Overall, this is a great collection of stories – a little dense, maybe, but highly entertaining (and a great look at Arabic culture if you’re into that). I highly recommend it. As for the complete 16-book collection … maybe I’ll read it someday. But for now, this is plenty.