Curiosity: The Wonderer - a Norwegian Folktale (adapted)
Curiosity :
This is a hunger that leads us down a path of discovery and realization. This pulls us towards new experiences and helps us break away from monotony and boredom. We learn for the joy of learning.
In folktales Curiosity is treated as a curse. The curious woman is thrashed for her nagging questions. The curious princess finds herself in all kinds of trouble and even in fairy tales such as Goldilocks and Snow White, curiosity lands the heroine in great trouble.
So while searching for curiosity tales, I wished for one that would throw a positive light on this amazing value to imbibe. Curiosity is that which takes us through a journey of discovery and as we grow older curiosity can help keep us mentally and physically active.
There are two delightful stories that you must read if you want to experience curiosity through a tale:
"Why Why Girl" by Jnanapith / Padma Vibhushan awardee Mahashwetha Devi, which reflects a lot of this folktale I have narrated here, but in delightful language. At the same time telling us Books are a source of immense answers to the questioning child.
The other book I would recommend is this delightful book about how curiosity spurred Albert Eistein called
"On a Beam of light" by Berne ( author) & Radunsky ( illustrator)
Vocabulary
wonder
eager
unusual
surprising
interested
different
agog
The Wonderer - Norwegian Folktale
(The original tale can be found on Tell me a Story - U express)
In a land far up North lived a boy called Per. He was
curious about everything around him and constantly wondered why things were the
way they are.
Even while playing a game, he would suddenly stop to ask a
question: “Why are the clouds so high up in the sky?” only to be ridiculed by
his friends who were quite used to his random questions by now.
Yet he did not let it bother him as he wondered and wandered
the village; sometimes observing, sometimes asking and sometimes just
understanding things as they appeared to him.
Curious Per they called him and he did not mind. “Curiosity
kills the cat” they mocked him, but he never gave a heed.
“I wonder how people
can make new things if they are not curious like me, so I am sure that need not
be true all the time” he said. No matter what his friends said, it never
stopped him from wandering and wondering and thinking up creative answers to
his questions.
One day, while playing with his friends, they heard a deep
rumbling from within the woods. It sounded like a hammering, but one can never
know what it may be.
“What is that sound I wonder?”said curious Per aloud. “You
wonder about the sounds coming from the woods?”, laughed his friends.
But Per decided to investigate and he followed the sound to
a clearing in the woods and there saw a strange sledgehammer that was hammering
a rock. But there was no one holding the hammer!
“May I know what it is you are doing?” asked Per.
“Waiting for you”said the hammer. So Per took the hammer and
put into his bag and went back to his village.
“So did you find the sounds of the wood?” Asked his friends
and Per just smiled at them and nodded his head.
On another day while playing by the stream, his friends and
he bent down to drink from the cool water, when Per had another question. “Where
does this stream come from, I wonder?” he said.
“Ha ha, from the top of a tree” laughed his friends.
Scarcely heeding their words, Per followed the stream
upwards, walking further and further away from them and when he finally
stopped, he saw the strangest sight. A walnut was open and the stream gushed
out from it! He picked up the walnut, and closed its mouth with some moss and
put it into his bag again.
“So did you find the tree?” Asked his friends when he went
back. “No, I found a nut” he said and they simply laughed at him.
It so happened that the King of that land was living in his beautiful
palace high up on the mountains. But there were two things that bothered him. A
wall which he had constructed just outside his palace had suddenly turned
magical, and whenever anyone tried to break it down, it grew bigger and taller,
almost double its size. So now this enormous wall blocked the palace view of
the beautiful hills.
The other problem was that there was no well inside the
palace and all the servants had to fetch water from a well far below. By the
time they carried the bucket up into the palace the water was freezing cold and
the bucket heavy. They despaired of their situation and pleaded the king for a solution.
The King decreed that anyone who would solve their problems
in one go, would be very well rewarded.
So the boys who were in the village gathered one day and
decided to help the king solve his problems. Per too tagged along with them.
The wall was gigantic by now and even as his friends started
hammering and breaking the wall, it grew bigger and bigger. They could do
nothing about it.
"Let me try" said Per and took out his magical hammer from
the bag. One bang and the wall came crashing down and as they watched, the
hammer broke the wall to bits and pieces all by itself. Such tiny pieces that
they had no magic in them to get back together and grow stronger and bigger.
The king was overjoyed. But Per now walked to the place
where the wall once stood and took out the walnut, placed it in the hole and
unplugged the moss and lo behold, a stream started flowing from the nut; all
the way from the palace to the village where he lived.
“This is amazing!” Said the King and sent Per back with
loads of good things for him and his family.
While all the others in the village, no longer mocked or
ridiculed Per. They now started wondering and asking questions about the world.
For that is how anything can be discovered!
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