Chinese Fairy Tales - Reading Diary A

This week I chose to read the Chinese Fairy Tales unit. This unit includes several short fairy tales about animals, magic, and some other supernatural themes. Some of these stories seemed kind of odd to me. For example, the Cave of the Beasts seemed to have an odd plot. It started off with a man going into the woods and discovering seven wild duck eggs to cook and eat. He returned home and had his wife cook them. He intended to eat them with her, but not share any of them with his daughters. When his first daughter woke up and saw her mother cooking them, she asked what they were. The mother told her she could have one if she did not tell her sisters. Then another sister walked in and the same thing happened. This kept happening until all of the eggs were gone. The father was mad when he returned home, so he tried to lead his daughters into the forest to be killed by wolves. This part seemed really odd to me- a father wanted to kill his daughters because they ate the eggs that their mother gave them. When the father left two of his daughters in the forest, they searched for shelter. They found a cave with a stone blocking the entrance, so they moved the stone and entered. There were stones and jewels inside that glowed and produced a light. The cave was the home to a fox and a wolf. The girls found two beds inside and slept in them. When they woke up, they found the fox and the wolf asleep in the warm kettles. They were scared so the trapped the animals in the kettles and kindled the fire. The animals told the girls they wouldn’t hurt them and begged for them to free them. The girls ended up killing the animals though. Eventually, the father came back and found the girls along with all of the jewels and stones. He took all of them and the family lived happily ever after. This seems like a very weird ending to a story that involves a father trying to kill his daughters over food, the daughters killing a harmless fox and wolf, and the father stealing all of the jewels.
 

(Photo of a cave with a stone guarding the entrance. Source: geograph.org)