folktale – Reading Between the Dunes

I’ve been writing short, folkloric-feeling or fairy-tale-ish stories for a book I’m working on. The stories are Arab-inspired, people-centered, and hopefully, tell their own tale, even within the context of the larger story.

This one is called The Lion and the Red Jewel and features a lion who isn’t what he seems to be.

There was a lion who lived in the desert who ate a jewel. It was as large as its head, as red as a burning sun, and hard as the mountain stone.

This lion ate the jewel, breaking it into pieces with its strong jaws, cracking through with its powerful teeth. And when the jewel lay in pieces in the sand, the lion swallowed each piece whole, feeling its weight settle in his stomach.

A hunter watched the lion, and knew the wealth it carried in its belly. This hunter was a greedy hunter, and he was fearless.

He stalked the lion for days, waiting for the right moment to bring it down and gut it open. The day came when the lion settled in for a nap in the shade of a palm tree, near a desert oasis. The oasis wasn’t much, just a shallow dip in the sand that filled with the odd rain that showered the desert.

The lion wasn’t stupid, though, and knew the hunter was following him. He kept one eye open just enough that he could see the hunter stalking towards him. The hunter came from behind, but the lion was so positioned that he could watch the hunter’s reflection in the pond.

Just when the hunter raised his arrow to shoot the lion in the back, the lion roared and bellowed and swiped the hunter with its sharp claws.

The hunter’s belly was shredded into ribbons, and blood poured out of him. The hunter curled up tight in the sand like a child in its mother’s womb. As the blood dried on his body in the sharp desert heart, it hardened over his skin, and the man became a jewel as large as the lion’s head and as bright as a burning sun. The lion swiped at the jewel and gnawed on it, breaking it into pieces. The lion then swallowed each piece, and when he was done, he went to the pond and lapped at the water. With his belly full, he settled in for a proper nap under the palm tree he so loved.

Tell me in the comments what you think!

This one is called The King with One Daughter and features a king who loses his only child despite his best efforts.

A powerful king had one daughter. His wife’s birth of their daughter was hard on her slight body, and after giving birth she found she could never conceive again. But the king was wise enough to know that a daughter was the same as a son and could rule just as well as any man. So he trained his daughter to rule, for when he and the queen died, she would take their place.
But the king loved his daughter with his every breath, with his soul, his heart, his blood. And he kept her locked in her room, wanting for nothing of the world’s riches. Guards posted at her door each hour of every day and every night, to keep the girl safe.
No one was allowed in or out of the room without being searched. The room was the highest in the castle, with walls that could not be scales, for they were covered in magical thorned ivy that no man or being could get through.
But there was a hole in the wall, in the corner of the girl’s room, a thin one only a snake could get through. And one day, a snake slithered in through the hole and up the girl’s bed as she slept.
Its fang dripped with poison, and as the girl shifted in her sleep and hit the snake with her arm by accident, the snake grew angry. It bit her, and poison coursed through her veins all through the night as the rest of the castle, save her guards, slept.
When the king and queen awoke, and summoned their day to the morning meal, her maidservants found her blue and cold in her bed.
The king cursed himself for being so foolish. For in trying to keep his child safe from the world, he failed to keep her safe in his own home.

Tell me in the comments what you think!

Reading Between the Dunes

Author: Rania Hanna

Tag: folktale

The Lion and the Red Jewel

The King with one Daughter

Rate this:

Rate this: