Reading Diary A: Twenty-Two Goblins

I chose to read the Twenty-Two Goblins unit for week 4. I chose the unit because it contains stories with riddles and I thought it would be fun to try and solve the riddles myself before reading how the king answers them. Here are a few of my favorite riddles:

Introduction
I enjoyed the introduction because I had never heard stories where goblins reside in dead bodies. I thought the backstory was drawn out perfectly. Although, so far, the main story has to do with the riddles and stories told by the goblin, it gave a detailed story as to why the king and goblin are together in the first place. All in all I thought this was a great way to begin the story and give the king's mission meaning.

The Three Lovers who brought the Dead Girl to Life. Whose wife should she be?
I liked this one because it kind of brought a twist at the end. It spent most of the riddle telling about the man who became a monk and found the spell. This led you to believe that this man would surely earn the title of being the girl's husband. The king feels differently and ends up being right. This was a good way to add a little twist at the end of the story.

The Girl, Her Husband, and Her Brother

I think I like this one mostly because it is the only riddle I seemed to get right throughout my first half reading. The severity of the husband and brother's sacrifices were very surprising to me but it made the story what it was. I also think my favorite character thus far is the king himself. He is obviously very smart (he has yet to all for any of the goblin's tricks) but he is also very loyal to his overarching mission as he starts over and over again after every riddle.

The king and the corpse containing the goblin hanging from the tree (Wikipedia).