Clay Lane
Posts in The Copybook credited to ‘Clay Lane’
An ageing Heron finds himself a little too stiff to fish for himself, so he thinks of a way to get the fish to do it for him.
The Fables of Bidpai are morality tales similar to the animal fables of Aesop, with a touch of the Arabian Nights. They were first published in England in 1570, but originated in India, and spread to the West from an Arabic translation made by Ibn al-Muqaffaʻ (724-?759) of Basra. In this tale, retold for the sake of brevity, a Heron finds that dastardly plans have a way of backfiring.
A harassed mother Raven vows bloody revenge on a venomous Snake, but the wily old Jackal has a better idea.
The Fables of Bidpai are morality tales similar to the animal fables of Aesop, with a touch of the Arabian Nights. They were first published in England in 1570, but originated in India, and spread to the West from an Arabic translation made by Ibn al-Muqaffaʻ (724-?759) of Basra. In the tale below, retold for the sake of brevity, a distraught mother learns that justice doesn’t have to involve confrontation.
By day Danaus had to watch his fifty unhappy daughters marry their fifty cruel cousins, but the wedding night was yet to come.
The fifty daughters of Danaus, a mythical ruler dwelling on the banks of the River Nile, are chiefly remembered for murdering all but one of their fifty husbands on their wedding night, and for the hopeless doom to which the stern rulers of Hades put them. And yet what mortal, knowing the girls’ whole story, could not feel pity for them?
Boris Godunov was crowned Tsar of All Russia in 1598 in the belief that Tsar Ivan’s son Dmitry was dead — but was he?
In 1604, Tsar Boris of Russia faced almost exactly the same scenario that had confronted Henry VII of England in the 1490s: a young man claiming to be a prince everyone thought had died years before, marching on the capital with an army of rebellion. The chief difference was that in Russia’s agonised Time of Troubles, the impostor actually got to play King.
Naomi lost her husband and two sons in Moab, and returned to Bethlehem with only one comfort in her bitterness, her daughter-in-law Ruth.
In all world literature, there can be few love stories to rival the story of Ruth and Boaz, set in about 1100 BC as a very early episode in the back-story of King David. Their tale has all the best ingredients: a determined heroine, a manly yet sensitive hero, a leap of faith, disappointments, misunderstandings and sexual tensions — and of course, a happy ending.