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    Girls and Goddesses: Stories of Heroines from around the World
    Girls and Goddesses: Stories of Heroines from around the World
    Girls and Goddesses: Stories of Heroines from around the World
    Ebook102 pages1 hour

    Girls and Goddesses: Stories of Heroines from around the World

    By Lari Don and Francesca Greenwood

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    About this ebook

    Greedy giants, cruel emperors, and shape-shifting demons—the stuff a girl has to put up with! Explore girl power in all its glory with stories of heroines from around the world. Myths and legends from the United States to Japan and Venezuela celebrate the courage of women and girls who rise to the occasion. With heroines like these, who needs a handsome prince?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLerner Publishing
    Release dateAug 1, 2016
    ISBN9781512419153
    Girls and Goddesses: Stories of Heroines from around the World
    Author

    Lari Don

    Lari Don was born in Chile and spent most of her childhood traveling around South America. She is an award-winning author of children's books and short stories. Lari lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with her cats.

    Read more from Lari Don

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    • 4/5
      I read this one along with Winter's Tales and I loved it. Perhaps, I loved it even more because here, we have Girl Power lasting through the ages. Intelligence, bravery, strength and charm from every corner of the Earth.
      ''Chi and the Seven-headed Dragon''- A Chinese tale.
      ''Inanna and the Box of Monsters''- A Sumerian myth.
      ''Telesilla and the Gates of Argos''- The myth of the woman who saved Argos from the Spartans.
      ''Durga and the Demon''- A spectacular tale from India.
      ''Kopecho and the Two Suns''-A tale from Venezuela.
      ''Mbango abd the Whirlpool''- A folktale from Cameroon.
      ''Hervor and the Cursed Sword''- A Norse tale, probably from Norway.
      ''Visiting Baba Yaga''- A legend from the forests of Russia.
      ''Aliquipiso and the Cliffs''-A Native Americal tale of the Oneida.
      ''Tokoyo and the Skin Rope''- A Japanese myth.
      ''The Giant's Heart''- A Scottish tale.

      Well, hard to return to reality after all the myths and fairytales....

    Book preview

    Girls and Goddesses - Lari Don

    95

    Chi and the

    Seven-Headed Dragon 


    Chinese legend

    Dragons can be awkward neighbors, so when the Emperor of China saw a dragon settle into the cave at the top of the mountain behind his palace, he wasn’t pleased.

    It was the biggest, scariest dragon he’d ever seen. It had seven heads, on seven snaky necks, attached to one thick, green, scaly body, and each individual head had ninety-nine sharp, curved yellow teeth. (I’m sure you can work out how many teeth the dragon had altogether, but the Emperor didn’t bother doing the math. He just knew it was far too many teeth.)

    I can’t have a dragon living above my palace! he whined. If it comes out of that cave, it might fly down here, frighten my party guests, and set fire to my palace. It might even eat me!

    He summoned his wise men and his wise women, and he asked them, How do we get rid of that dragon?

    The wise men and wise women frowned. It’s not easy to get rid of a dragon, oh great Emperor, but we could make sure it doesn’t leave its cave, then it wouldn’t threaten your palace.

    How would we do that? demanded the Emperor.

    If we feed the dragon its favorite food at the mouth of the cave, then it won’t need to leave the cave.

    Great idea, said the Emperor. What is its favorite food?

    The wise men and wise women looked a bit embarrassed, so the Emperor stamped his feet until they admitted that the long, green, seven-headed dragon’s favorite food was:

    Little girls.

    Little girls? said the Emperor. "Little girls? But I can’t feed little girls to the dragon! I don’t want to feed my own daughters to it, and I don’t want to feed the daughters of my cooks or soldiers or gardeners or civil servants to it either, because then they wouldn’t like me and they wouldn’t work for me."

    The wise men and wise women said, There are lots of farmers, fishermen, and merchants outside your palace who have daughters. You could feed their little girls to the dragon to keep it safely in the cave.

    So the Emperor demanded a silk bag filled with the names of all the families in China who didn’t work in his palace, and every Friday morning he picked out a name. Then a messenger on a fast horse rode to that family and announced in a loud, shouty voice:

    "By order of the Emperor, you must feed one of your little girls to the seven-headed dragon. But because the Emperor is kind and merciful, you may choose which of your daughters to give to the dragon."

    So each week, a family would take a little girl up the mountain. They would all walk up a steep, winding path to the very top, where they would sit the little girl outside the cave, then bang a big brass gong put there by the Emperor’s servants. The booommmmm of the gong told the dragon that his tea was ready. Then the family would go away.

    Leaving the little girl on the mountain to be eaten.

    Over weeks and months and years, the steep path to the summit got wider, trodden down by the many feet which had climbed up and the fewer feet which had walked slowly and sadly back down.

    But it worked! It worked perfectly, from the Emperor’s point of view, because the dragon stayed in the cave and didn’t bother him at all.

    Then one Friday, the name he pulled out of the bag was Li, a rice farmer. So the messenger rode to Li’s rice farm and said in a bored voice:

    "By order of the Emperor, you must feed one of your little girls to the seven-headed dragon. But because the Emperor is kind and merciful, you may choose which of your daughters to give to the dragon."

    Li looked at his three lovely daughters with tears in his eyes.

    His youngest daughter, whose name was Chi, thought this was a dreadful thing to ask any father to do, to choose one of his children to feed to a dragon.

    So, to save her father from making such a terrible choice and to save her big sisters from the dragon, Chi said, I will go. I will go and meet the dragon. But I would like to ask three favors of you, Father. I’d like to take the sword that hangs over the fireplace, I’d like you to give me seven barrels of your best sticky rice, and I’d like to go up the mountain on my own.

    The next morning, Chi left the farm with a long sword in her belt, pulling behind her a cart loaded with seven barrels of sticky rice.

    As she walked up the mountain on her own, she could smell the rice. Her father had cooked the sticky rice before he put it in the barrels, so as she pulled the cart, she was surrounded by the warm, sweet, toasty smell of cooked rice. She knew the rice in the barrels was gluey, gloopy, and glutinous.

    When she got to the top of the mountain, she placed the seven barrels of

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