- Don’t judge a book by its cover –

I’ve read several stories about animal-human marriage, to name a few are The Stork Wife (Japanese), The Golden Apple Tree and the Nine Peahens (Serbia) and The Swan Maiden (Sweden). 
the stories and others can be found at http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/swan.html

 

The story of Iroquois: the Girl Who Was Not Satisfied with Simple Things is also about animal-human marriage. The girl, who was not named in the story, was not satisfied with simple things. In the context of the story, she was not satisfied with her suitors. She would find ways and means to reject them. Each suitor who came was not good enough for her. This upset her parents. They were worried of ever finding her the perfect husband.

One night, a very handsome young man just appeared out from nowhere and asked for her hand in marriage. The girl was captured by his charm and she agreed to his proposal. On the same night she followed this handsome stranger home even though objected by her mother. 

Her husband was actually a serpent disguised in human form. Despite knowing the mistake that she has made, she was a courage girl and planned for her escape with the help of her grandfather who appeared in her dream. Finally, she managed her escape and was married to a man with a good heart. She has learnt her lesson and advised her grandchildren to be satisfied with simple things.

The girl’s problem is also experienced by others, including me. I seemed to be given choices (most of the time); therefore I often choose what I think is the best. Little that I know it might not be the best. This metaphorical phrase, “don’t judge a book by its cover” has always inspired me to think before I decide. Whenever I need to make decisions I’ll always tell myself that “looks are not as important as what is inside because what you see is not what it really is”. 

One of my experiences was when I decided to purchase the Perodua Viva. Despite all the disagreements on the small-sized and under-powered car, I went ahead and purchased it. My reason was simple; it’s within my budget. To my delight, there was a fuel price hike after 2 weeks. So, my small-sized and under-powered car helped to patch the hole in my pocket because of low-fuel consumption. One of the marvelous things that my car can do was to fit into narrow parking spaces. It was not a bad choice after all because you don’t judge a car by its size.