The Undertaker / Coffin-Maker
Many readers feel let down by this gloomy Alexander Pushkin story because of its seemingly abrupt ending. A Russian undertaker moves house to a more affluent Moscow suburb of predominantly German artisans. Invited to a neighbor’s party, he over-indulges in wine. After taking a proposed toast to his “corpses” as an insult to his profession, he threatens to have his own celebration the next day for those for whom I work: the orthodox dead. He wakes to find that his threat has become a reality. Or has it? Themes: life and death; racial, professional and religious prejudice; insecurity; unethical conduct/cheating.
In this folktale (aka The Clever People), a cruel farmer is angry with his wife because she was cheated out of two cows. He promises not beat her for it if can find someone more foolish. He soon finds one: a widow who is worried about how well her dead husband is doing in Heaven. The farmer makes up for losing his cows by cheating the widow out of a bag of money and stealing a horse from her son. At the end of the story, he seems to think that it is OK to cheat foolish people.
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In this Swahili folktale, a monkey accepts the offer of a ride on a shark’s back to see the wonders under the sea. Once at sea, the monkey learns that the real reason for the trip is that the shark king needs a monkey’s heart to cure an illness. The monkey tricks the shark into returning. He then explains the trick by telling a story about a donkey, a hare, and a lion. One of the animals kills another. The third animal cooks it, but tells the killer there is no heart. Can you match the animals to the outcome?
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