Week Twelve

Part A: I read the More English Fairytales unit. I really enjoyed the stories, they were sometimes silly and sometimes serious, but had interesting plot lines. I didn't really recognize any of them from my childhood either. I vaguely know of Pied Piper, but I didn't remember what exactly happened. In the  unit story The Pied Piper, a town is filled with rats and a man with a pipe comes and says if he gets paid he will get rid of all of the rats. For fifty pounds, he plays his pipe and leads all the rats into the ocean where they drown. The mayor then refuses to pay and he plays his pipe again, this time enticing the children. From my understanding, I think the children followed the Pied Piper into the woods and they were never seen again. A pretty sad ending. In the first part, I also thought The Three Wishes was interesting. A man goes into the forest to cut down a tree and a fairy pleads that he spare the tree. Because he listened, she granted him three wishes. In the end he wishes for black pudding, his wife wishes the pudding was on his nose (not sure why) and then he finally wishes for the pudding to get off his nose. In the end, they stayed just as they were with the exception of some nice pudding.

Part B: I really enjoyed reading The King o' the Cats. The story was about a man who comes home to his cat and his wife and tells the strange events he encountered that evening. He said he witnessed a cat death processional. He said that the cats spoke to him and told him to find his cat and tell him that Tim Toldrum had died. His cat, apparently Tom Toldrum, said he was the King of the Cats and scurried off.