Reading Notes: South Africa, Part B

 

The Old Dog. Source: Pixabay.

    The story that stuck out to me from this unit was called "The World's Reward." I really liked the plot of the story as well as its use of a bunch of different animals as characters in the story. The story starts off by mentioning a man that had an old dog that he no longer had any desire for. The man is going to "dispose of him," but the dog finds this out and leaves before the man has a chance to. The dog goes on this journey and finds all kinds of animals. He finds an old bull, a ram, a donkey, a cat, a cock, and a goose. They were all headed to a place known as "the land of the aged," which is described in the story as a place "where troubles don't disturb you and thanklessness does not deface the deeds of a man." While on their journey, they stumble upon a house full of robbers. The robbers had a whole table of food, so the animals get on top of each other and start making noises. The loud noises scare the robbers out of the house, and the animals go into the house to start chowing down on the food. There was so much food left that they all decided they were going to stay until the morning, so they could finish the rest. However, the leader of the robbers sent a man back to the house to see if the animals were gone. Little did he know, all of the animals took post in different parts of the house to guard it. When the man attempted to enter inside, all of the animals attacked him in different places. When the robber reported back to his buddies, he told them that there were a bunch of people in the house that were attacking him. I'm assuming the house was pretty dark inside because the man did not describe any of the attacks accurately. He described the goose attacking him as being attacked by "a pair of fire tongs."

    I thought the story was very entertaining and gave me Home Alone vibes. I liked to see all of the different kinds of animals band together to take over the feast.

Story Source: "The World's Reward" from South African Folk-Tales by James Honey (1910).