Week 5 Reading Diary Continued: The Green Jewel

The story reminded me of the classic Biblical tale of Moses parting the red sea. This is a tale about a woman who lost a green jewel from her hair while steering a boat; she would not settle for any other jewel for hers was irreplaceable. A magical scribe parted the waters of the sea for her to find the green jewel, returned it to her, and settled the waters as they were before. It was interesting to me how the first thing the scribed offered Sneferu to do because he was sad and weary was to go boating with twenty of the prettiest virgins to paddle and steer. There were a lot of descriptions throughout the story that kept it interesting; one about the splashing water particularly stood out to me. This story does not have any major lesson to be learned like many of the others I have read, but is rather more of an interesting read. One thing I have noticed about old tales from different cultures is that not all of them teach something important about life, but can rather be just an interesting read about that particular cultures history and traditions provide more insight about them.

(Green Egyptian Jewel: Source)

These notes were taken during and after reading the story entitled The Green Jewel written by Donald Mackenzie in 1907.