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Reading Notes : Alaskan Legends, Part B

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 of grass wishing it could be something else to avoid being used by humans. It changes from its original plant form until it becomes a human, eventually turning into a wolverine (?) and avoiding wolves out of anger. I know, doesn't really make sense, but many of these don't. They are fun to read, but almost too creative in nature to be believable. Not that folklore is intended to be believable, but the joy in them is in the imagination they spark and entertaining certain ideas. Some ideas just happen to be more entertaining than others. I want to try and recreate this element of inspirational whimsicality in my own storybook and stories. Writing almost exclusively about animals helps. Many of the Alaskan stories have animals and men as one; in the beginning, animals could shed their skins and masks and take the form of humans. Thus, animals are always highly intelligent in these stories. 


Artic Fox: wiki


Myths and Legends of Alaska. Edited by Katharine Berry Judson (1911). Web Source. 
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