Dogs are with humans since a very long time. Almost all the countries in this world have some stories about dogs. People everywhere understood and kept these beautiful creatures with more beautiful mind, with them. And they have never turned us down till now. They stood by our sides as our best friends in our highs and lows.
Many countries have dogs in their folktales. And you know all the folktales have a little bit of truth in them. Let us have a look at the folktales of the Asian countries.
Mongolia:
Once upon a time there lived a greedy dog in Altai Mountains. One day while strolling around the greedy dog found a bone near a bridge on a river. He looked across the river and looked nicer on the other side so he decided to go to the other side and started walking on the bridge. As he looked down in the river he saw another dog with a bigger bone in his mouth. The greedy dog thought he could take two bones so he jumped on the river to fight his own reflection and lost his bone along with the other dog with a bone.
Korea:
Once upon a time in the kingdom of underworld, a woman came. The king asked her about the interesting things she had done. The woman was very poor and spent her entire life inside a cottage looking after her children and family, she couldn’t see the world, and she couldn’t help anybody. So the king sent her back to the earth as a dog. Meanwhile that woman’s son Choi’s dog gave birth to a puppy. The puppy was too gentle towards the family members and always protected the house with all her might. As the puppy grew up Choi decided to sell her as some of the villagers wanted to buy that splendid puppy and Choi needed some money desperately. But all of a sudden the puppy vanished and Choi looked for her everywhere but couldn’t find her. A Buddhist monk, who was passing by at that time, told Choi that the dog was actually her reincarnated mother. She is hiding because she doesn’t want to leave Choi. Choi remembered how the puppy looked at her and the puppy came back to him. From that day Choi travelled everywhere with his dog, rather with his mother. Till the day the dog died.
Japan:
Once upon a time in a remote mountain town lived an old couple. One day when the old man was working in the field a puppy came to him crying because he was mistreated by a greedy old man who lived across the field. The old man took the dog in and named him Shiro (means white in Japanese) and took care of him like his own son. In return Shiro helped the old man in the field and looked after the family. One day when they were travelling over a mountain Shiro pointed somewhere in the soil and started digging, seeing that the old man joined him too and he found lots of gold. Soon the greedy old man heard about that and kidnapped Shiro. He asked Shiro to show where the gold was. Shiro began to whimper. The greedy old man thought that the gold was there and as he dug the soil tons of garbage and snakes came out. The angry greedy old man killed Shiro. The poor old couple was heartbroken they made a grave for Shiro and a sapling was born on that grave. One day the old woman thought Shiro loved rice. So they chopped the tree and made a mortar and started supplying rice in that mortar and the rice turned into gold. The greedy couple came to know about it and they stole the mortar. But when they put rice in it, the rice turned into mud. The angry old man burnt the mortar down. Disheartened poor old man brought the ashes back to his house. They thought they could grow some radish with those ashes as Shiro loved Radish. The old man started pouring the ashes to dead trees and the dead trees turned into beautiful Cherry trees. The king came to know about it and came to see the cherry tree garden. The king wanted to reward the old man, that’s when the greedy old man came and demanded that he was the great bloomer and sprinkled the left over ashes and the ashes choked the king. The king got angry and threw the greedy old man into the prison.
China:
Once upon a time a man and his wife had a lucky ring. Whoever wore that ring could get enough to live on but the couple didn’t know that so they sold the ring for a little sum of money and they started to grow poorer and poorer. They had a cat and a dog. The cat and the dog decided to do something for their master. The dog had an idea. He told the cat that they could bring the ring back but the cat said the ring was in a chest which she can’t open. So the dog said that the cat could threaten a mouse to make a hole in the chest and bring the ring back. So they set out for the ring. On the way to the house where the chest was kept, there was a river. The cat couldn’t swim so the dog helped her cross the river. And cat reached to the house and threatened a mouse as planned. The cat got the ring and came back by the river where the dog was waiting. The cat kept the ring in his mouth and the dog crossed the river with the cat on his back. Both the creatures were excited to bring back the ring. So they ran. The cat reached first and gave the ring to her owners. The owners acknowledged the cat and promised to take care of her like their own son. Later when the dog came, they beat the dog because they thought that he didn’t help to bring the ring back and threw him out of the house while the cat remained silent. Since then the dog chases the cat whenever he sees her.