Dark tale?

When I was first reading this story, I found that this is a common yet interesting tale. I was reading it with enduring interest. What makes it common is that the story involved human, animal and magic (I would say); makes me think of the story of “The Prince Frog”. How the story unfolds and evolves is somehow rather unexpected to me. Then, another startling moment I had when is when we were taught by Dr. Edwin that this story is not an ordinary tale, it is a dark tale. I was like “dark tale?” As we read the story in class then I noticed the so-called dark element of the story; firstly it was indicated by the line “…where he seized a knife and cut off the turtle’s head so that it died.” The portrayal of this gory act brought this tale to the resemblance of dark tale.

Later in the text, another dark element was presented. The mother said to her son “These are your bones of your father. Take them to the bottom of the river and put them in the dragon’s mouth, and hang the other bones on his horns” – this portrays the sinful deed of the mother who teach her son to deceit which is against morality. I personally think that tales have a lot purpose and advantages. It is the means of educating children where adult’s dream of childhood can be traced in the history of fairy tale. And apart, most valuable role of tales is that every cultural artifact has it cultural heritage thus exposing the students to a wider horizon of knowledge and diversity in life.