(You is a kitty; online source, pinterest)
I'm having a hard time really understanding these stories. Most of them seem bizarre to me. However, I do like the writing style. They are all written in a pretty straight forward fashion with a clear trajectory but the message behind most of the stories isn't clear to me.
I found humor in some of the writing, which I think can be useful in writing my own story. "Ledha and the Leopard" was one that really made me laugh. The image of a lizard latching onto the rump of a tiger and not letting go was pretty funny to me.
"The Monkey and the Girl" inspired me the most of this set. I loved that the girl was so devoted to the monkey that she threw herself into the fire in the end but if I were to write something based on this it would be another love story, which seems to be what I'm most comfortable writing and I'd like to give something different a try.
I really like stories that have a meaning or some sort of symbolic meaning. Many of these stories don't seem to have that, which is challenging for me. I found myself searching for some hidden meaning that I'm not sure was there. So, I tried to find some other facet that enticed me.
Most of the stories seemed bizarre to me; a girl in love with a monkey ("The Monkey and the Girl"), a girl married off to a tiger ("The Tiger's Bride"), a tiger and a cow that are best friends (but then the tiger decides to eat the cow) and their children also growing affectionate for each other (The Tiger Cub & the Calf), etc. So, when I tried to come up with something to write about I drew inspiration from my overall opinion of the stories. I'm imagining a story about a young boy (or girl) walking through the jungle, unknowingly eating hallucinogenic berries and seeing some crazy things on his / her journey. Hopefully I'll find more inspiration in part B, because I'm not too confident in this idea.
Source
Santal Folklore, recalled and translated to English by C. H. Bompas, online source.
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