Compare/Contrast Essay

               Learning about other cultures is very fun. It opens your eyes to the infinite amount of cultures around you. With magical animals talking, abnormal creatures, and time passing faster than thought can be thought of. Different cultures express their stories through folklore.
               “The Tiger and the Hare” is a folktale written by a Pakistani showing that jealousy can get you no where. The hare convinces the tiger there is a bigger and even worse tiger out in the forest, challenging his name. For this reason, does the tiger set off after the imaginary bigger tiger. If only the jealous tiger didn’t believe the hare, and realize, just because he’s like the big bad wolf, doesn’t mean he can’t be tricked. But mostly tricked into something that eventually took his life. Jumping into the well did this to the tiger. He thought he saw the “better tiger” in the well and jumped in, but to only to find out it was all a lie. Because of his mistake, he starved to death, alone, all alone.
                               As “The Tiger and the Hare” has showings of jealousy, “The Mermaid Wife” has some of the same concepts. When the Unst saw the fair damsel, jealousy consumed him. Jealousy of how the mermaid was not his, so he took her seal skin and forced her to marry him. But that jealousy only brought pain to the Unst. The first chance the mermaid had to go back to the sea, she grasped it, and left him, leaving behind the Unst worse off than he started off.
               While the Unst lusts after the maiden, being completely selfish, a servant thinks of others before herself. The poor girl is presented with a honour to be a godparent to a little elf. Though she wants to get back to her masters, she is finally convinced to stay for three days. She knew her masters would want her to enjoy herself, so she permitted herself to stay for the remaining days. Though when she knew it was defiantly time to return to her masters, time had passed so fast, that it had been actually instead of three days, but seven years.
               With wonderful stores such as, “The Tiger and the Hare”, “The Mermaid Wife,” and “The Servant Girl  and the Elves,” it’s hard not to see the cultures shared and expressed. One must remember, just because these folklore are from other cultures, doesn’t mean there are cultures out there that aren’t like ours. We mustn’t look threw a looking glass and point out all the differences, but look for the similarities between cultures all around the world.