Week 15 - Reading Part A

(Image of Basilisk illustrated by Bertuch and found on Wikipedia)

I chose the picture above because of all the images dispersed throughout the readings I found this one to be the most interesting. Growing up an avid Harry Potter fan, the image of a "basilisk" in my head was just of a giant serpent whereas this creature is not nearly as frightening. I'll even go as far as calling it more silly than anything. If I saw this coming at me I would probably laugh and swat it away, I'm assuming from the reading that although it was a weird interaction, the basilisk was not deathly scary to both women.

Anyway, the specific basilisk story aside, a learned an awful lot about Czech folklore. In every story of this reading section there seems to be a mention of royalty, through kings, princesses, or knights. I think it speaks to their deep monarchy that they exist through the culture and are very seldom seen in a negative light. The royal member is always cursed and the commoner must have complete faith in them in order to break that curse. It almost seems like a way of subconsciously promoting the monarchies. The reward for helping the monarch is marriage (which the commoner is almost never asked for consent on). I think these stories were used to help promote whoever was in power at the time and keep the lower class content with the idea that they were never to question the ones in power and to serve loyally.

Bibliography: The Key of Gold by Josef Baudis can be found in the Czech Folktales unit of the Mythfolklore Blog.