Week 14 Reading Notes Part B: English Tales

The King o' the Cats

A woman and her cat are waiting for the husband to come home when he flings the door open.  He starts ranting about how while he was digging a grave he fell asleep and when he woke up he saw 9 white cats carrying a coffin.  He said they came closer and closer to him and the biggest cat in the front of the group said, "Tell Tom Tildrum that Tim Toldrum's dead."  After saying this, their cat, Tom, starts swelling up and says, "What?  Old Tom dead! then I'm the King o' the Cats!"  The cat runs up the chimney and is never seen again.

Tom, King o' the Cats! sourced via Wikipedia

This story in particular made me laugh really hard at just how ridiculous it was!  If I were to redo this story, I would definitely make it someone's dream to try to justify how ridiculous it is.  I would love to try writing a story that is just totally crazy and then it turns out it is just a dream!

Bibliography:
More English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs

Week 14 Reading Notes Part A: English Tales

The Three Wishes

One day a woodsman went out to chop wood and his wife gave him supplies.  He comes upon a great tree to chop but before he hits it a fairy begs him not to.  To show it is grateful, the fairy tells him he will be granted three wishes, but quickly disappears.  The man mostly thinks it isn't real, comes home, and when his wife says supper won't be ready for a while, he says he wishes for pudding and BAM pudding comes down the chimney.  Then later the wife gets mad at him and screams that she wishes pudding were in his nose.  It happens and they can't get it out so they have to use their final wish to get it out and they run out of wishes.

Fairy sourced via Pixabay

This is a classic example of being careful what you wish for!  This story kinda made me mad, which is why I would like to change it!  I want to write a story where someone that gets three wishes actually does it in a responsible manner!  I don't think I have ever personally read a story where being granted three wishes turns out okay.

Bibliography:
More English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs

Week 13 Reading Extra Credit: Filipino Tales

The Wicked Woman's Reward

Once a king had five women, two of which he loved most because they could have children.  He said whichever bears him a baby boy will be his wife.  One bears a girl, the other a boy.  The one that bears the girl is jealous and kills her own baby and steals the other woman's child.  She replaces the child with a cat.  When the king finds this, the woman who bore a boy is commanded to be drowned and she is killed.  When the other woman presents him with the baby boy she stole, he marries and loves her dearly.  Soon, the water the dead woman was drowned in started smelling sweet.  Her body washes up and is growing sweet flowers.  Anyone who tries taking the body is pecked at by birds.  When the king hears of this, he goes to her body and feels remorse upon seeing her.  The dead body leaps up, tells the king about the corrupt wife he married, and in his rage he throws his wife out a window and kills her.  The king commands for the woman who actually bore the boy child to be buried among the noble dead.  The child grows to be a wonderful prince and king.

Flowers in Water (body not included)
sourced via Pixabay

I liked the weird plot twist of this story.  It was strange to me the whole flowers growing on the dead body thing.  I guess it was just a cool representation of how she was actually a good person.  I personally would have added the detail that the other woman when dead starts to smell like manure or something of that degree.  I would like to place this story into a more modern context! I feel like it would make for a very interesting story!

Bibliography:
Filipino Popular Tales by Dean S. Fansler

Week 13 Reading Notes Part B: Celtic Fairy Tales

A prince named Llewelyn had a dog named Gellert.  One day the prince called all the dogs at his place and all came except Gellert.  He goes on the hunt without him.  When he comes back, Gellert's mouth has a bunch of blood on it, and the prince fears that his new baby might have gotten eater.  He runs to the nursery to find the cradle filled with blood.  In a panic, he looks everywhere but can't find the child.  Convinced of wrongdoing, the prince kills Gellert.  But in Gellert's final breaths, he hears his child crying under the cradle, alive, with a dead wolf next to him.  He feels terrible.  RIP Gellert.

Dead wolf sourced via Wikipedia

This was SO SAD oh my god.  I can't believe this horrible sad ending!  I haven't written a sad story before and this story inspires me to do just that!  I really liked it and it was well made even though it was terrible and sad!

Bibliography:
Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs

Week 13 Reading Notes Part A: Celtic Fairy Tales

The Shepherd of Myddvai
A shepherd sees three maidens rise from a lake. 

Lake sourced via Wikipedia

He offers them bread but they start singing to him, saying his bread is hard and they run away.  He comes back the next day with bread that is softer, but the maidens say it is too soft and run away again.  He comes back again and this time the bread is good enough for one of the maidens.  She says that if he comes back the next day and can select her out from her sisters she will be his wife.  He is successful and she tells him she will always be his as long as he doesn't strike her three times without cause.  Years pass and everything is okay, but one day she asks for gloves to ride a horse.  When it is time to ride and she stands there not moving, he taps her on the shoulder to go and she tells him that is strike number one.  Another time, they are at a wedding and she starts to sob.  He taps her on the shoulder asking what is wrong and she tells him that bad things are upon them and that that was the second strike.  The next is at a funeral and she starts bursting into laughter.  He taps her on the shoulder asking what is wrong and she tells him that's the last straw and leaves him.  She takes all the animals with her and the only other time she is seen again is when she comes back to see the grown up children she had with the shepherd.

I thought this story was odd and actually really funny in a way.  It was a little twisted and manipulative that the maiden could be so heartless, but it was also really amusing.  I would love to do this except in like a child romance way like in grade school where a fifth grader's girlfriend says something like he can't touch her hand but he keeps accidentally doing it or something.

Bibliography:
Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs

Week 12 Reading Notes Extra Credit:Pacific NW Native American

Woodrat and Rabbits

a woodrat lived with its mother and five rabbits lived near by.  The woodrat starts a fight with one of the rabbits asking why it likes bitter leaves of cabbage over everything else.  The rabbit doesn't want a quarrel, but accuses the rat of being a thief.  They continue to argue until the rat catches the rabbit in a net and kills it with a stick.  He then does the exact same thing to the other four rabbits until all are dead.  The rat and its mom eat the rabbits and dance around a fire but they both accidentally catch fire and die.  The end.

Woodrat sourced via pixino

This story stood out to be because I realized it is one of the few stories I have ever read in this class where the bad guy wins.  While the rat does eventually die, it successfully killed all the rabbits, which I feel most readers would rather the rat die than the rabbits.  Now, this got me thinking of how strange it was to see the rat having such a good time after killing the rabbits.  It just goes to show just how much perspective matters and how the bad guy always has his own story.  I would love to write a story entirely given from the account of a bad guy and try to make the reader find sympathy and support for the bad guy even though they do bad things!

Bibliography:
Myths and Legends of the Pacific Northwest, especially of Washington and Oregon, by Katharine Berry Judson

Week 12 Reading Notes Part B: English Fairy Tales

Fairy Ointment.

A nurse is woken in the middle of the night by a man who asks her to take care of his baby because his wise is too ill.  They make it to their house and the woman gives the nurse ointment and tells her to put it on the baby's eyes as soon as he opens them.  Curious to what it does, the nurse also puts the ointment on one of her eyes.  When this happens, everything gets better.  The nurse and the baby become more beautiful.  The rest of the family was still quite ugly and usually up to no good.  When the woman is better, the nurse asks to be taken home.  The next day she goes to the market and notices the same man as before stealing things from everywhere and nobody seemed to notice.  She walks up to talk to him and he freaks out that she can see her and realizes that she must have put the ointment on her own eyes.  It turns out the ointment allows you to see pixies and the family were all pixies!  The man smacks her on the side of the head and it blinds her.  The end.

Ointment sourced via Flickr

This story was really strange and interesting to me because of the seemingly "normal" way pixies were portrayed.  It made me wonder how popular the pixy myth is in this culture!  I would love to recreate this story keeping the same classical time period but with a different mythological creature that becomes seen!

Bibliography:
English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs

Week 12 Reading Part A: English Fairy Tales

The Old Woman and Her Pig

Old woman finds money and buys a pig.  The pig won't jump over a stile, so she tells a dog to bite him but the dog refuses.  She then tells a stick to beat the dog but it also refuses.  She finds fire and tells it to burn the stick but it refuses.  This goes on and on until she tells a cat to kill a rat.  The cat tells her it will kill the rat if she gets it some milk, so she goes to a cow, who then tells her he won't give milk unless she gives him hay.  She gives him hay and the cow gives her milk and she gives the cat milk and the cat starts killing the mouse so the mouse eats rope and it has a chain reaction up until the dog bites the pig who then hops over the stile.  The end.

Domino effect sourced via Max Pixel

I loved this story because of the crazy dynamic of it.  I couldn't believe how long it went on for with the chain reaction!  This was really interesting and I would love to redo this in a chain reaction that is different and more modern!

Bibliography:
English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs

Week 11 Reading Extra Credit: Releasing the Buffalo

Long ago, people were playing games at their camp when a raven comes.  They all watch him closely because they plan to follow where he goes for food.  However he flies super high and only few can see him at all.  They eventually find the raven again and he distributes meat to all of them.  They ask him about the buffalo but he gives no answer.  They change an Apache into a puppy and hide him in a bush.  The ravens children get the puppy and don't want to let go of it.  They decide to keep it believing it is just a puppy and not an Apache.  The raven then goes to get some meat from the buffalo he has locked up and the puppy goes with.  In the middle of the night, the puppy lets all the buffalo out to be free.  The Raven notices and tries finding where the man is but he hides behind one of the old and slow buffalo that he doesn't pay attention to.  The man goes back to his tribe and tells them he let the buffalo loose and they rejoice and feast.  The raven and its children were left to eat the gross remains of dead buffalo.

Raven eating dead remains sourced via Wikipedia

I loved this story because it is filled with Indian culture and also really shows how they told stories about things such as why Ravens eat gross things.  It is amazing the amount of detail put into a story that really just goes to explain something like that, but it is incredibly entertaining.  If I were to make a story off of this I would put this one into a modern context but make it an explanation for something more modern and make it a little more exciting and obviously easier to read.

Bibliography:

Releasing the Buffalo by Pliny Earle Goddard

Week 11 Reading Notes Part B: The Coyote and the Snake

A coyote is walking through a field in a straight line when he comes to a snake that tells him to stop and go around him so that he won't step on him.  They get into an argument and the snake tells him that if he steps on him he will kill him.  The coyote does it anyways and he gets bit but doesn't feel it.  After mocking the snake and calling him a liar because he hadn't died yet, he comes upon a lake and looks in the water and sees that he is fat which is surprising to him.  He then realizes he is really tired and falls asleep and never wakes up.  The snake wasn't lying.

Snake biting Coyote sourced via Flickr

Once again, this story really interested me because of its style.  I imagine stories like these being ones that are told to children to teach them lessons about life.  They are really simple and have a very specific point to them.  I think I will try making a new story by writing something that is very geared toward teaching a child a lesson.  And also make something more simple than I usually do because my stories are typically very complex.

Bibliography:

Great Plains: Coyote and Snake by Katharine Berry Judson

Week 11 Reading Notes Part A: The Eagle's Revenge

A hunter hears a noise and checks to see what it is.  He finds an eagle eating a deer he shot so he shoots the eagle.  The Chief orders for there to be an eagle dance because of the dead eagle and a person who seems to be from another tribe comes to the dance.  There are rattlers at the dance and the person who seemed to be from another tribe starts telling stories.  After each story, he would yell out, "hi," and one of the rattlers would die.  This happens until all the rattlers are dead and everyone is very scared.  The strange person disappears and people later find out that he was the brother of the eagle that was killed.

Eagle sourced via Wikipedia

I thought this story really showed a unique style of story telling.  I really liked how different it was and I would love to retell it.  I think it would be really challenging to match the style because I have never written a story like this before, but if I could pull it off it would feel very rewarding and I feel like it would greatly enhance my writing abilities!

Bibliography:

Great Plains: The Eagle's Revenge by Katharine Berry Judson

Week 10 Reading Part B: The Hunter And The Uksu'hï

The Hunter And The Uksu'hï

A man living in Georgia goes to visit relatives.  After resting at their place, he went out to hunt.  He was told to not go toward the north where there is a dangerous Uksu'hi snake living around an uprooted tree.  If he went in the area, the snake would coil around him and crush him and drag him into a hole.  Although he hears the warning, this only sparks his curiosity and he goes and finds the snake who is looking the opposite direction.  He runs away, but the snake chases after him and catches up to him.  The snake coils around him, crushing his arm and torso but leaving his other arm free.  He tries clawing at the ground trying to get free but every time he does this the snake knocks him out with its horrible breath.  He then remembers that the snake can't stand the stench of perspiration, so he covers his hand in armpit sweat and when the snake turns to knock him out again with its breath he shoves his hand in its face.  The snake releases him and runs away and the hunter is safe.

Coiled Snake sourced via Wikipedia

This story was very interesting!  I really wonder if you can actually make a snake like this let go of you if you shove your armpit sweat in its face.  If i redid this story, I would put it in a much more modern context and keep the theme of someone doing what they shouldn't and getting in trouble.  Then I would either be evil and make them die from their mistake or find an equally bizarre way to get them out of the situation they get themselves into.

Bibliography:

The Hunter And The Uksu'hï by James Mooney

Week 10 Reading Notes Part A: Tobacco and Strawberries

How They Brought Back the Tobacco

In the beginning of the world, there is a single tobacco plant that everyone took from until geese steal it.  Everyone's health deteriorates and one lady is about to die because she doesn't have her tobacco.  Many animals offered to help but every one that did got killed by the geese.  Finally, a hummingbird, who everyone thinks would be too small and weak, proves his abilities to get the plant by flying to a plant in a field and back without anyone even noticing.  He manages to steal the tobacco and seeds and saves the dying woman and the day is saved.

Tobacco Plant sourced via Wikipedia

Origin of Strawberries

The first man and woman are created and live in peace for a while, but eventually they start to fight and the woman goes off to the sun land.  The man follows behind her feeling sorrowful but the woman never looks back.  The sun then asks the man if he is still angry with her, to which he says no.  He is then asked if he would like her back and he eagerly says yes.  So, the sun forms a patch of the finest huckleberries and blackberries in front of the woman but she refuses to even look at either of these.  New plants were continually put in front of her until the red berries, the strawberries, caught her eye.  She stops to gather and eat them and is reminded of the good times she had with her husband.  She gathers more berries and comes back to them and they are happy again.

I really liked these stories because I love origin stories.  They really say a lot about culture and since I am part Muscogee Creek Indian I really like learning about how my ancestors thought.  I am leaning toward the tobacco story because I really liked the underdog feeling it gave and I feel like I could really take the opportunity to expand on such a short story.

Bibliography:

Cherokee: Tobacco and Strawberries by James Mooney

Week 9 Reading Notes Part B: The Golden Squash

The Golden Squash

There were two old men living in the mountains, one was kind at heart and the other was greedy.  The king old man had a bird land in his garden with a broken wing.  He nurtures it back to health, lets it free, and it comes back with a seed that it says will do him well.  He grows the seed and it produces a gigantic squash.  He god five men to help him carry it to his house, but when he tries to eat it he finds that it is made of pure gold and because of this he is now rich.  He uses his wealth to help the sick and poor.  The greedy neighbor, envious of the kind man, gets a bow and shoots a bird's leg when it is near his garden.  He then nurtures it back to health pretending it is out of the kindness of his heart, and when the bird gets better it brings him a seed that bears a squash of similar size.  He gets five men to carry it to his house just like the kind old man, but when he opens it, a scary old man jumps out of it.  He tells him he has been sent from the king to weigh him, grabs him by the neck, weighs him, and says, "You are far too light and no use at all," and proceeds to cut his head off.  The end.

Large Squash sourced via Wikipedia

I liked this story, not just because of the message it bears, but also because of the absolutely crazy ending it has.  It inspires me not just to write about this message that many people from the modern era need to hear about the bad things about greed, but also to write something that stuns the reader like I was.  It was a strange, but good feeling to think the squash was going to have spiders or be rotten or something, but ends up having a man jump out of it and cut his head off because he doesn't weigh much!

Bibliography:

Tibetan Folk Tales: The Golden Squash by A.L. Shelton

Week 9 Reading Notes Part A: The Wise Carpenter

The Wise Carpenter

The new king has two men under him, a painter and a carpenter, both the masters of their crafts.  The painter tells the king that he had a spiritual encounter where the king's dead dad demanded a message to be delivered to the new king demanding him to send up the best carpenter he has.  The king tells the carpenter he will be sent there, and the painter tells the king that if he wants him sent there, he would need to be set on fire along with all his tools and he'll ride the smoke to heaven.  The king tells him that he has seven days to prepare for his departure.  The carpenter, knowing the painter just wanted him gone, gets his wife to help him dig a place from where he is to be burned to his home so he can escape.  The village builds a fort around him, set it on fire, and he escapes through the tunnel.  He waits three months, then comes to the king with a letter from his supposed dead father, telling him the carpenter did a great job and should be given many riches, and that the temple he built was amazing, but that it needed to be painted by the finest painter he has.  The king commanded for the painter to be sent to heaven the same way, and the carpenter tells them to play music so it would drown out his screams and he dies.  The end.

Big Fire sourced via Wikipedia

I thought this story was really funny!  I love it when a person is being screwed over by their enemy, and they are able to turn it back around on them.  I wanted to do this story in a more modern context for people in a comedic way since I haven't done much comedy in my stories.

Bibliography

Tibetan Folk Tales: The Wise Carpenter by A.L. Shelton

Week 7 Reading (Extra Credit): Italian Tales

Water and Salt

A king asks his three daughters how much they love him.  Two give satisfactory answers, but the third said she loves him as much as water and salt.  He immediately orders an execution, but the other sisters get the executioner to swap her life for a dog's and they smear her clothes in blood and bring it to the king.  The daughter that was supposed to be dead is found in the woods by a magician and the king's son falls in love with her. The magician tells the son that to marry her the son must kill him the day before the marriage, invite three kings, and order the servants to pass water and salt to all guests except the king. The day before the wedding they killed the magician and quartered him, and put a quarter in each of four rooms, and sprinkled his blood in all the rooms and on the stairway, and the blood and flesh became gold and precious stones.  At the banquet after the wedding the daughter supposed to be dead was sitting by the king and he isn't eating because he doesn't feel well but the real reason is because he wasn't given salt for his meat or water to drink.  The girl reveals to him that she is his daughter and they rejoice.

I thought this story was strange, but liked that the king learned from his child.  I want to redo this story in a modern day situation where a kid says something that a parent thinks is really silly but then turns out to be very true!

Father and Son Playing sourced via Pixabay

Bibliography:

Water and Salt by Thomas Frederick Crain

Week 6 Reading Notes: Ancient Egypt Part B

The Praying Baker

A king dresses up as a beggar and approaches a bakery.  He sees the owner praying to god and decides that he is going to test his commitment to his prayers.  If he fails the test he will be put to death and if he succeeds he will be given honor.  He then gives the man his ring that is worth a bunch of money as collateral for some bread and commands a Wizar to try to get the man to give the ring away.  He tells the Wizar that if he succeeds he will be given a reward but if not his head will be cut off.  The Wizar's messengers go to the bakery to test their scale they use for flour, and while they are distracted they steal the ring and it is given back to the king.  The king calls in the baker and tells him to give back the ring but when he can't return it the king tells him he has 10 days to get the ring back.  The king then drinks from a river, the ring falls off, a fish eats it, and a fisher gets the fish and starts to try to sell it.  The baker buys the fish not knowing of the ring being in the stomach, finds it, gives it to the king, and everyone rejoices.

Ring sourced via Wikipedia

I really liked this story!  I like the twists and turns it makes.  The part that I didn't like, however, was the sadistic mind of the king doing everything in the story.  If I redid this, I would make it so that the king ends up getting his head cut off and I would challenge myself to make a similar sequence of events with entirely different context.

Bibliography

The Praying Baker translated by D.L.R. Lorimer and E.O. Lorimer

Week 6 Reading Notes: Ancient Egypt Part A

The Wolf and the Goat

A mother goat with four children tells the children that she is going out to get grass.  She tells them that when someone knocks at the door and says they are their mother, to look at the hand of the person and if it is black it is the wolf whereas if it is red it is the mother.  The wolf hears the conversation, paints his hand red, and takes three of the children.  The mom finds out, goes to the wolf's house.  She challenges him to a fight and before hand they go to the dentist and have their teeth/horns sharpened.  The goat brings a good gift and gets them sharpened but the wolf tries to rip the dentist off so he pulls all the wolf's teeth out and replaces it with fakes.  The goat challenges him to drink a bunch of water and jump across a river, and when the wolf does the goat pierces his stomach and kills him.  She gets her kids back and live happily ever after.

Wolf sourced via Pixabay

I thought this story was strange because nothing ever comes of the wolf getting his teeth replaced with fakes.  The story would be much better if it ended with him trying to bite the goat but it doesn't do anything.  I would certainly change that in my story I write and I would also make the being human instead of animals.



Bibliography

The Wolf and the Goat: translated by D.L.R. Lorimer and E.O. Lorimer

Reading Notes: Turkish Fairy Tales Part B

The Soothsayer

The story begins with a man who is a worker in the fields of industry and his wife who is about to take a bath.  The wife and another woman who were about to take the bath see a crowd of people excited for the chief soothsayer's wife coming to their establishment.  The wife of the man, jealous of the soothsayer's wife, tells her husband he must become a soothsayer of she will leave him.  He doesn't want to lose her, gets advice from a friend to talk to a woman who also takes baths, and she devises a plan where he dresses up as a hodja ( a person who can find lost items ).  They wait by the bath, and when the soothsayer's wife comes by, the lady steals her ring secretly, hides it, and tells the man of its location.  When the wife panics that it is lost, he amazes her and the crowd by seeming to magically know exactly where it is and he is seen as a soothsayer by everyone.  However, the wife loses it again and her husband calls in the fake hodja and tells him he has until tomorrow morning to know where it is or his head will be cut off.  It turns out that a servant stole the ring and she sneaks in to tell the fake hodja that she stole it and he tells her to make a goose swallow it and break his neck.  The next day, the fake hodja amazes everyone that he knows exactly where it is, and he is promoted and becomes successful.

I chose this story because while it was good, I would like to change the ending.  I would redo the story in a very similar fashion and in the same time period but change the setting.  The man will instead get himself into trouble that he is not able to get out of when he has the jewel/ring be hidden in a bucket of flower in a storage room, but in morning a new shipment of flower comes in and he has no idea and gets killed.  It would serve as a purpose of teaching not to lie or you will end up in a situation you can't get out of.

Biggest Liar Sign sourced via Flickr

Bibliography

The Soothsayer by Ignacz Kunos

Reading Notes: Turkish Fairy Tales Part A

Fear

A young boy is with his mom who has fear, likely that someone might break in.  The child asks what fear is, but her explanation of it doesn't suffice so he sets out on a journey to find it.  He comes across robbers, the living dead, abusive maids, and a Daughter of the Sea but nothing seems to scare him.  Along, the way, the abusive maid drops a bracelet, he picks it up, and a Jew tries to claim it.  He takes it to court but neither can prove possession over it.  He finds three transforming pigeons/maids that talk about how they are impressed with his lack of fear and how they were the manifestations of all the bad things he had encountered so far and give him a second bracelet which he uses to win over the first bracelet from the judge.  The town's king dies and a crowd of people tell the boy that when a pigeon is released, whoever's head it lands on they will be pronounced the new king.  The pigeon lands on the boy's head, but he doesn't accept.  They release a second pigeon and it also lands on his head but he once again rejects the throne, saying he not looks to be a king but find fear.  The same thing happens a third time and while he resists, the widow of the king says he is the new king and tells him whoever is king one day will be the next a corpse.  They make a casket for the boy, he sleeps in it, then burns it when he wakes up.  The king's corpse is carried by slaves but it turns out he is not actually dead and to celebrate a live sparrow is put in the soup dish for supper.  The boy is commanded to lift the dish of the soup, the sparrow flies out, he is shocked, the former widow tells him he experienced fear, and they live happily ever after.

I have to admit, this story was awful.  Usually you are supposed to choose a story that you liked, but I chose this because I wanted to clean it up a lot.  I think I will take this story, have it be in modern times, and have the kid not be scared by anything except the fury of his mother when he disobeys her and the moral of the story will be to not disrespect your mom because if there is one thing in this world that is to be feared it is a mother's fury.

Mom Power sourced via Pixabay

Bibliography

Fear by Ignacz Kunos