Mythology and Folklore

ANOTHER FAVORITE. The Little Mermaid is such a classic, and the original slaps. I guess I am old and beaten down now, but this version is my new favorite. The Disney version will always have a special place in my heart and be a part of my childhood, but his original version is so poetic. It is definitely more my style; it leaves an impression when the heroine doesn't get to live happily ever after, which is okay too! The world Hans Christian Andersen weaves is glorious . I could feel the mermaid's pain, urgency, and suffocating need to love and be loved. This is a story that will never get old, part of it due to how beautifully it is written. One of my favorite parts is when he describes the five older sisters and the things they experienced going to the surface for the first time. The scenes he paints makes me feel like I am experiencing those beautiful landscapes for the first time, too. Often time mermaids are fantasized, and it was interesting seeing it from the other per

I was able to revisit some of my favorite stories from my childhood with this reading. The work of Hans Christian Andersen is so iconic and touching even now. It is really different reading these stories as an adult than as a child; what I took literally before is now so symbolic. I hadn't read the story of the little tin soldier in so long, and with it came a flood of memories. One thing I really love about his writings is how visual they are. For kids, it helps immerse them in the world he is trying to make and really experience the story with the character. For adults, there is something kind of sad and wistful about it. His creativity brings the situations to life in a very enjoyable way. One way he does this is through the flow of the story; it read extremely well and is easy to follow. The narrative is super smooth and beautiful to read, which is a big plus. There is nothing 'hard' or difficult to read about it, and it isn't tedious or repetitive either. Every s

Once upon a time, in an unknown location at a vague period in time, there was a grand dance. This dance was like formal on steriods, and all the young ladies and gentlemen came to attend. They were eager to see who fate might put in their paths for the night. One young lady, forced to go against her will by her friends, decided that while she must go, no one was dictating how. Alexa was one of the fairest maidens in all the land, and her friends often made this home-body attend social event for the men she attracted. Alexa hated the male gaze, the wandering male hands, the smug entitleness that all men seemed to have. She tried her best to avoid their attention, and yet for some reason, all men seem to have an internal program that makes them think that pretty women who say no are just trying to play hard to get. Alexa would not be a victim of their harrassment this time. Rather than a fancy gown and jewelry, she donned a handsome suit, stuffed her long tresses into a short wig, sw

At last we are able to see Britomart unite with her beloved knight, Sir Artegall. This part B reading was full of more adventures and fighing as our heroine traverses landscapes and defeats many foes to find her beloved. She has to combat spiritual and magical forces this time, too. What I really enjoyed about this whole unit was how great the storytelling aspect was. The narrative style is easy to follow, although the amount of characters could get confusing at times. A lot of people are referred to simply as maid, maiden, sir, or knight, and after a while it can be hard to straighten them out. When the author was describing the procession of characters like Fear, Hope, etc. the use of imagery characterizing the appearance of each one was stunning. The setting and time period was mostly set in part A, and I felt like part B was mainly used for more character development. Britomart stayed true to her love in the end. When she finally beheld Artegall, it was a truly moving moment. All

I had such a fun time reading this! The thing that got me hooked was the crossdressing female lead who, with the help of her magic weapon, went around the country knocking all sorts of men on their butts. It was really interesting to me how her motivation was just to find the man she fell in love with thanks to Merlin's magic mirror. It seems a rather foolish endeavor, to leave your title as a princess and a homely castle to find this wandering knight, but also very pure in a way. The main heroine has almost a childlike innocence to her which makes her someone the reader can wholeheartedly root for. One particular chapter I really liked was when another fair maiden fell in love with Britomart, thinking she was a handsome knight. The whole evening, Britomart has to side step the maiden's advances. Her cover is ultimately blown when the woman descends upon her chambers at night. I was chuckling the whole time at this. It isn't written humorously, but the whole situation was

This week I watched two TED talks over the stories and storytelling. This included The Dangers of a Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Imaginary Friends and Real-World Consequences by OU professor Jennifer Barnes. These videos were very different but I enjoyed them so much! Adichie opened her talk by revealing more about her Nigerian background and how American and British literature had impacted her book-loving childhood deeply. She only had this single story/image from the books she read, so all the stories she wrote involved blonde hair, blue eyed children eating apples and talking about the weather. When she came to America, she was shocked that people had such skewed beliefs about Nigeria. She said something that really stuck with me: stereotypes aren't necessarily untrue, they just don't tell the whole story. I have been thinking a lot about this lately. A popular group on facebook popped up a few months ago called Subtle Asian Traits, and honestly I think eve

I really enjoyed Part B of this reading as well! What I noticed a lot was that the author often used specific objects to describe things instead of just adjectives. For example, "legs were like tree trunks" and "eyes the color of milk". The use if similes and metaphors were very effective in decribing the vividness of the setting and characters, especially the monsters. It also strikes a lot of imagery in the mind (well, at least my mind) of the reader and brought the whole story to life. The creative effects also made the story, which is a bit longer than most, very engaging to read. Also, the author used many stylistic elements in the text. Repetition, alliteration, and parallel sentences brough fight scenes to life and animated the plot. There was often a flare for the dramatic as well, which was refreshing to read, especially in scenes of conflict. The characters are brought out larger than life, and their actions reflect that. The narrative style of this is

I have been looking forward to reading The Story  of Beowulf for a long time, since reading someone's storybook project about it at the beginning of the semester. It seemed like a wonderfully epic hero tale, full of knights, fighting, dragons, quests, everything I love! Being a fan of fantasy, this reading had all the components to keep me dutifully intruiged. One thing that particularly suprised me in this reading was how smoothly it read. The transitions between scenes, settings, characters, and dialogue was almost movie-like in nature. I felt like I could imagine the whole scene playing out before me. One great things that adds to this is the author's attention to detail. He truly paints a picture for every setting, devoting enough time to change the mood and immerse the reader. But it doesn't seem forced or out of place at all; it is like all the elements in nature are combining to make that one moment in time special for both Beowulf and the reader. Another thing I r

In a house on the other side of the world, there lived a very beautiful girl. She took may suitors as husbands, but one by one they perished by the tricks of her father. Her father was very cruel and possessive of her beauty, not believing any man was good enough for her. At last, only one husband remained. His features were light in comparison to her midnight black hair and dark chestnut eyes, but she was determined to help him survive the tests of her father. One evening, the father invited the husband over to his house for dinner, expecting to rid himself of his son-in-law once and for all. "You must absolutely not wear your shoes inside his house." the wife warned. "Although the ground looks calm, you will burn up if your shoes touch the carpet." When the son arrived, he followed the father inside. "There is no need for you to remove your shoes here, I will take no disrespect." the father urged. But the son, aware of his tricks, vehemently insist

This second unit of this reading focused much more on humans and their relationships, especially those between father and son. I noticed that there is a lot of competition between males in Native American stories; many time an older male will try to banish or kill a young up-and-comer. They are often jealous of their youth and very protective of their women and resources. But the young male hero always emerges victorious in the end, much from the help of a female that also wishes the old male to fall. There are often mystical powers involved, including enchanted animals, spirits, witches, and even the earth and skies itself taking part at times. Earthquakes, thunderstorms, giant storms at sea are all fair game. I was not as engrossed with the writing style as I was with Part A. These stories focues a lot on actions only, and it seemed a bit dry at times. Without as much dialogue it was hard to get attached to a character, since you couldn't tell what his personality was like. Als

One thing I really enjoyed so far about this reading is how long the stories are. Instead of individual stories per chapter, each of these takes up about three chapter for one story. I felt like this really helped with character and plot development. Also, unlike the Alaskan stories I read last week, these stories were a bit more realistic, in the sense that they took place (mainly) on earth with real animals and real events in nature. Everyone loves a good hero story, and all of these were untraditional in their own way which made them interesting. One that I particularly liked centered around a bluejay, whose selfish actions were the reason he got sent on a journey to begin with. But upon his return, despite overcoming many obstacles, his life is pretty much the same before. It was interesting how their definition of hero is quite different from those we typically think of. For humans, it means dominating as the top species. For animals, it usually means just surviving.  At times,

A long time ago, in a village by a great river, there lived a family of twelve brothers and one beautiful sister. There was also a young boy who was good friends with these siblings. Now this was a time when the earth was still waking up and the stars were just beginning to bleed into the sky. Between the twelve brothers, there was a master in nearly every skill needed by the villagers. Some were phenomenal hunters who often went to the mountains to hunt deer. Some were skilled craftsmen who made houses and canoes. Some were blacksmiths, others were scientists and mathematicians. But the boy was very lazy. While the brothers worked, he often hung around their house with the sister. She was very hard working, just like her brothers. She spent her days gathering berries and preparing the meat her brothers would bring back. Before, the boy was quite frail and nothing but bones, but thanks to the sister's kindness, he got rounder and rounder. He filled himself on the dishes of ber

Part B of the Alaskan unit was so much more fun and interesting to read! Perhaps the creation stories from the trickster Raven were tiresome to follow, but these stories involved a lot more different animals and humans as well. They were also more romantic in nature. Many of them involved a husband trying to find a wife or other animals and men trying to satisfy their loneliness. These did not have as much of an Alaskan or winter vibe to them as the first part of the reading, but definitely felt more folklorey, in the sense that many of them worked to explain natural occurences in nature. I particularly liked the one about a boy who fell in love with a girl and tried to chase her to heaven, but is always falling behind. They became the sun and the moon, and the moon will chase the sun forever, but can never overtake her. I also like the one about the trickster fox (because who doesn't like tricksters? Or foxes?).  There was also a similar one I read in another unit about a blade

This week, I am reading tales of the Eskimos of the Bering Straight. At first, it told stories about the creation of man, and I was struck how similar it was to the biblical tales of creation. In this case, God was a Raven which created all the living things out of clay, but took man up to the Skyland (heaven) while the rest of men stayed on the earth. I was a bit dumbfounded how Raven was quite selfish and childish to the things he had created; he stole the sun away because he wanted men to die since there were too many, he often cheated other animals for food, gradually the Raven degraded from omnipotence to foolish carion eaters. What I enjoyed most were the descriptions of why certain animals live the way they do now. It was almost like explanations for different traits and characteristics of animals. For example, the goats live in the mountains so men do not over-hunt them, reindeers have dull teeth because originally, they had wolf-like teeth to eat men but men were able to pro

Congo River, jbdodane. source . At the edge of a rainforest, there lived a man who made his hut a little further away from the village by the river. Every morning, a wild boar would visit the riverbank and make a splendid mess rummaging through the villagers' waste in search of scraps to eat. Day by day, the man saw the pig visit the riverbank and get more and more plump. A particular morning when the man's stomach was a bit hungrier than usual, he decided to go out and kill the boar and eat it. When the boar saw the man coming, it cried out in alarm, "My brother! I beg you please do not attack me!" Surprised at such an exclamation, the man lowered his arm and the boar took this chance to disappear back into lush safety of the greenery. Scowling to himself, the man returned to his hut. "How can I be a brother to such a creature? She lives her life in a cave or under a bush, I live on land in a dry home. She rummages through my waste for h

Yet another gruesome adventure in the Congo with this reading. Part B of this unit had many more animals in it, but they acted like humans so nothing was too different. I was really suprised that none of the animals acted like they were supposed to. Herbivores would eat other herbivores, a turtle and a man built a city together, in which the turtle tricked everyone and ate an antelope. It seemed like the storytellers just picked random animals because they were tired of humans. Once again, it is often hard to tell who the protagonist is. Sometimes, the one you should be rooting for ends up the worst off in the end, and sometimes the person who does bad actions gets forgiven and well treated in the end. There doesn't seem to be much love between mother and children in this; familial ties don't seem very strong in the Congo tales. The fetishes play a much bigger role, and they can be granted to animals as well. As in Part A, I think the writing style was a bit too dry for me.

I was really suprised by how gruesome some of the stories from the Congo were. I found that most of them involved the relationship between a husband and wife, but always with a male at the center of it and making the big decisions. These people are not very affectionate; there were so many instances of brutal murder over petty things. This made the whole thing quite interesting to read (but only if you have a strong stomach!) Things I really noted were how some characters were born special. They were born with a fetish or a charm that protected them, even brought them back to life! Also, justice is not black and white. In these stories, what is fair or not is a spectrum. For example, someone may have had a pitiful birth, gotten wealth from a spirit, but if he was ungrateful and deceitful, he would lose it again. The reader is left a bit ambiguous who the protagonist is. Often times, it is simply a storytelling of different characters, where the plot is more interesting than the actor

I like what I have created so far. I am especially pleased with my website; I am putting a lot of thought and effort into both the posts and the design layout, and I think it shows when people visit. I want to be proud of everything I do and I am working hard to achieve that. I think my reading notes could be a bit more specific; now that I have a clear vision of what I want to do for my storybook, I am not paying as much attention to reading notes as I did at the beginning of the semester. Also, I tend to get everything done in two sections, right at the beginning of the week and then during the weekend. Having so much time inbetween completing assignments sometimes makes me forget where I left off last, so I will try and be more continuous in my work. I think a lot of my progress as a writer has been to be unafraid of using dialogue and letting the characters some to life. Rather than a narrator saying anything, letting the characters' words and actions speak for themselves is

So far, I am actually quite happy with the progess I've made on my blog. The most satisfying thing is just seeing the record of my readings and storytellings thus far. Seeing just how many posts I have done is quite amazing, since I've never tried my hand at blogging so far. I changed the layout of my website to a lighter tone (it was almost all black before). I do think darker colors are easier on the eyes; we spend so much time on screens, and the blue light from it keeps the brain active and distracted, so I switched to warmer colors. It won't help a lot, but hopefully it won't strain the eyes as much. I spent a lot of time on my project website the other day and I am really happy with the layout. I want it to be interesting and engaging to the readers, something they want to read, not just required to. My favorite reading so far has been from the Laos unit. The combination of spirits with SEA people, which often includes a morale or parable, is so enchanting. I am

In the heavens far from our known galaxy, there lived a very lazy celestial being. He found it too tiresome to try to create anything new, unlike his neighbors who kept themselves busy forming new galaxies and expanding the boundaries of the universe. He preferred to remain among his wasteland, where other creators tossed their defective and broken pieces of sun, moon, and stars. One day as he was lounging around, he asked a passerby to toss some food in his mouth, as he hungered but could not bring himself to move a single limb in search of food. With a wry smirk, the passerby approached, but instead of food, he poured a handful of stardsust into the lazy man's mouth. Eyes closed and tasting this, the lazy man new he had been fooled and with a heave, he hefted himself up enough to grab a nearby star and hurl it at the passerby. The traveler just laughed as the star hurled into the depths of space, but the star travelled with purpose, gaining energy and becoming brilliant as it spe

I liked Part B's reading more because of how mischevious some of the stories were. One had an interesting prose of "One woman in deceit and craft is more than a match for eight men" and proceeded to describe how one woman had played a handful of dudes to building houses for her and then sold them as slaves and pocketed the money. Unlike the first unit, there were a number of deceitful people who lived profitably by cheating others, but they're written in such an entertaining way that you don't see them as a bad person. Perhaps because it was always a woman or a young boy doing the deceiving, someone who didn't have a lot of their own. It stuck a chord on how beneficial cleverness is, imbeciles who have a lot are nothing in competition next to someone witty. I also particularly liked  The Lazy Beggar , who had nothing and yet ended up with everything. The ending really stuck in my mind: "when a poor man does nothing, he is called a lazy beggar, but when a

I have really enjoyed reading about Laos   folklore so far during this week. I actually began reading the Japanese unit, but the writing style was a bit more difficult to follow, and all the gods are much more other-wordly compared to the spirits in Laos mythology. What I really enjoy about it so far is that the everything feels very grounded to earth, versus other Asian mythology when the spirits and whatnot are very celestial. Also, nothing is too heavy or "end of the world" centered, but instead Laos folklore deals a lot with problems in daily life and quirky stories that explain how certain things in the world are, or how they should be. A favorite of mine is The Spirit Guarded Cave   which addressed colonialism. That was also one reason I chose a South-East Asian unit rather than East Asian, which more people are familiar with. SEA faced a lot more issues from European settlers. This inspired me to a broader range of issues in my own storybook, white supremacy being one

This week, I read Chapter 2 of Empoword, a writing resource for college students. It was a great crash course of sorts for the basic elements of composing a story or narative, with thorough outlines on how to keep the plot moving, sequence, pacing, scope, and reflection. I found the refresher on point of view especially helpful, since I am planning on writing my storybook from a third person limited point of view (from little Egan's perspective!). What I really want to try incorporating are the examples given that illustrate proper characterization and flow. I really worry about writing a boring narrative that sounds like the same old story people have read before. This website gave tips on how to include more and specific details that help the reader share the vision that the writer is trying to create. It is much more effective to talk about the unique traits of each character, understanding that the reader will imply the rest (obvious traits), and make them memorable. Characte

The conclusion of Twenty-Two Goblins was really satisfying; it turns out the goblin was rooting for the success of the king all along and was testing him to slay the fake monk. This reading followed the same pattern as Part A, stand alone riddles that the king must solve. What I really liked about the ending was that the king did not know the answer to the final riddle, but he stayed silent which showed his character. To this, the goblin found him worthy of the power the rogue monk was trying to get. I like the lesson a lot: knowledge without character, and vice-versa, is weak. The translation is very easy to read and flows  seamlessly. The writing style does not take any attention away from what is happening in the plot, which makes it all the more easy to follow and understand. I think this kind of writing is very necessary for a story that largely consists of riddles. The imagery in the ending, describing the monk's ritual, was super creepy and effective. It was also very straig

This week's reading is very similar to The Tales of a Parrot that I read last week. It consists of individually standing chapters that are riddles which a king must solve. I love these kids of stories because I am engaged and am trying to figure out the riddle myself. What I love about Twenty-Two Goblins  is the characters in each riddle are usually quite one-dimesional. The pretty damsels are prettier than Greek Godesses, enough to woo any man that sees them. The wise men are completely wise, the brave men can slay any enemy, the loyal are loyal regardless of the situation. Because of these characteristics, their actions truly do speak louder than any words and reveal their character wholly. I used to not like characters written this way, but as a plot element it is really effective. It allows the king to make the correct deductions every time, which shows his thoughtfulness and logic. I think writing using this straightforwardness for characters can be really impactful for my own

Deep in the jungle lived a mighty lion. In his old age, while he found that his claws and muscles still served him, his teeth were weary. After a meal, bits of meat would remain and during his slumber, mice would scurry about feasting on these scraps. This greatly disturbed the lion's sleep, and despite his best efforts, they persisted. He tried scaring them with his mighty roar, but the mice's brain were too small to remember this scare for any long amount of time, and after a few minutes they returned to him. The lion tried snapping them up to intimidate them, but the dumb mice seemed to not know any distinction between the flesh of the lion's prey and the flesh of their own. After many restless nights, the lion consulted his advisors. "In your kindom," stated a fox, "there are a number of cats, one who is especially skilled in chasing away mice. Perhaps the mice see you as far too omnipotent to comprehend as a threat, but a cat is their natural predator.