I like reading short stories especially folk tales, because of many reasons like
* They have some history and some cultural relevance
*Second and more important, they are not long.
Some of the greatest short stories are not given by master writers but actually they are folk tales. I am going to write two of them [I want to share with you all] from my memory. One is Persian folk tale and other one is Chinese. I hope you all will like these two. If you didn’t it will be fault of my writing.
Long time ago, in a small village of Persia, one man used to live with his servant. One day servant came running from the market. When his master asked him the reason, he replied that in market place he saw death and death was looking towards him with scary eyes. He then begged his master to lend him his fastest horse so that he could go to Baghdad and hide there for a few days. His master granted him permission. After his servant was gone he went to market to buy the ration. There he saw death again. He asked death angrily why he scared his servant. Death replied innocently “I did not mean to scare him. I was just surprised to see him here, because I have an appointment with him in Baghdad in the evening. So I was surprised.”
Second one-> Chinese folk tale. I like this one because this one is romantic and I like romantic stories.
During Chin dynasty when China was growing as an empire, the emperors were worried about the protection of the frontiers from foreigners. So they started building a wall [The Great Wall of China]. Peasants and soldiers were forced to make the walls. Walls were made by ramming. Though walls thus made were weaker than the concrete walls they can be made much faster. The peasants from the frontier villages were forced to work. Sometime around this time, in some frontier village, there lived a newly wed couple. Both used to love each other very much. This man also went to frontiers to make the Wall. There he died due to overwork. The captain of that platoon was a cruel man. He ordered his body to be rammed in the wall itself with the soil. After some time anxious wife came to the work station in search of his husband. Everybody knew that she love her husband very much. Just by thinking how heart breaking it would be for her, nobody dared to tell her the truth. They just said that he was not working with them; ask at the next work station. At the next work station, she got the same reply. Her tale always preceded her and she was getting the same reply at all the workstations. Everyone thought that someday she would get tired and return home. But she kept on walking continuously. She walked about 100 miles along the wall. Her tale was getting famous. Then at someplace when she asked someone, he mocked her back that your feeble husband was dead and his dead body was rammed in these walls. It is said that after listening this news, she neither screamed nor cried. Only one drop of tear fell from her eyes out of love passion and anger and this drop created a big hole in the “Great Wall”. She turned around, walked a few steps and then she fell on the ground, dead. The place she died now stands a temple on her name and women come there and pray for long life of their husbands. And the hole is still there.
