Reading Notes: Parrot Tales, Part A

Source: Maxpixel

• The parrot is trying to keep the woman of the house from cheating on her husband
• Every night he drops the name of a story, she is intrigued enough to stay and listen
• By the time he finishes the stories, the sun has risen and she can't go
• This time he tells of four men who were in the woods. 
• Each man has a different specialty. 
• As each keeps watch, they use their specialty to create a beautiful figure.
• The last prays that the wooden figure because a real woman (very pygmalion)
• The men fight over who gets her and everyone they go to to ask for advice ends up trying to claim her. 
• They come up with dumb excuses. 
• We never hear her speak up for herself. In fact she never speaks. Can she speak? Does she have thoughts and feelings of her own?
• When they go to the tree for judgement...
• Tree first splits open. 
• She "ran" to rejoin the tree
• Went back to where she belongs, where she came from

Tales of a Parrot: The Goldsmith, the Carpenter, the Taylor, and the Hermit

: The Tooti Nameh or Tales of a Parrot, by Ziya'al-Din Nakhshabi (1801).