Reading, The Coffin-Lid, Part B

For part B of this last week I stuck with the Russian unit stories. My favorite story from this second part was titled The Coffin-Lid from Russian Fairy Tales by W. R. S. Ralston (1887).

In this story, I wondered why the dead man decided to come out of his grave to kill some young boys. If I were telling this story, I would at least give an explanation as to why he wanted to kill them. I think he should rise from his coffin and kill the bad people of the world. No one ever knows who is doing the killing, but people are thankful for this "hero" for protecting their community.

Graveyard
Source: Public Domain Pictures

People try to stay out of trouble and do the right thing because they know this man will come kill them if they do anything harmful in the community.

One night, when the corpse is coming out of his grave, a man from out of town will decide to follow him and he witnesses him killing two boys. He asks the corpse why he does this and the corpse says that he is making society better by killing all of the bad people. The man goes to the police to report the problem and soon the whole town knows what's going on.

Out of fear, no one does anything about it. The community just decides for each and every person to live a good and honest life or they will pay the ultimate price of death.

Reading: The Dead Mother, Part A

For this last week of reading, I chose to read the Russian story titled The Dead Mother. This story comes from Russian Fairy Tales by W. R. S. Ralston (1887).

I enjoyed this story up until the end. The baby dies, but it doesn't give an explanation why and it seems to throw the whole story off. I think it's a cool concept that the baby is soothed at night because the dead mother comes back to nurture and take care of her baby, but still I find no reason to have the baby die at the end. The husband already lost his wife, it would be even worse to lose his child.

So, I think in my version of the story I would not have the baby die. I would have the dead mother come back to take care of her baby, and when the husband finds a new wife, she will stop coming around. The husband will bring many different woman home, but the dead wife will not stop coming back until he finds the perfect woman to care for their child. As soon as he finds the perfect woman, the dead wife will say her goodbyes to her family once and for all, and wish the new mother luck.

Mother and Child
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Another concept I could use would be to make this story would be to make the dead woman kidnap her baby because her husband is trying to have bad woman be the new mother of her child. After losing his child, the husband searches everywhere for a new fitting mother to care for his child and finally finds one. I want the ending to be happy, as I do with most of my stories.