The Bears of Nametoko

I liked both stories for this week but I especially loved the format of "The Bears of Nametoko". It sort of felt like the narrator was telling the story of Nametoko and the bears and Kojuro to a child as a bedtime story or something. The way the story is fragmented makes it seem even more like a bedtime story, like the storyteller is being asked on numerous occasions to talk about Kojuro and he's forced to make up different tales as he goes along. The story seems very fairytale-esque with the talking bears and how Kojuro is accepted by the animals but not by humans, and especially the ending. The scene with a frozen Kojuro surrounded by what I'm assuming are bears conjures up the image of Snow White being "frozen" in time in her casket with the animals and dwarfs all around her.

Did any other aspect of the story remind you of fairy tales or bedtime stories?