Week 12 Story: The Man and the Newspaper

The Man and the Newspaper

One day a man was coming home from work when he notices his dog holding his newspaper.  "Good boy!" The man said, as he tries to take the newspaper from the dog.

The dog says to him, "Not so fast!  I am very hungry as you forgot to feed me this morning.  Give me one of your chicks from the shed to eat and I will give you the paper."

The man goes to the shed to grab a chick, but the rooster attacks his hand when he goes to grab one.  The man says to the rooster, "I need one of your chicks to give it to my dog so he will give me the paper.  Out of me way!"

The rooster says to him, "Not so fast!  We have been too cold this winter and have gotten close to death.  Get us another blanket and you can have the runt of the flock."

The man goes inside to grab a blanket.  He doesn't have any spares except for the one his cat usually sleeps on.  The man goes to grab the blanket, when the cat plants its paw down on it and hisses in his face.  The man says to the car, "I need this blanket so I can give it to the rooster, who will then give me a chick, which I will then take to the dog, who will then give me my newspaper.  Get off of the blanket!"

The cat says to him, "Not so fast!  I have been wanting a rat to hunt for a long time now.  Find me some game and the blanket will be yours."

The man goes into his attic to find a rat and runs after one when he sees it.  However, the rat runs into the hole and the man can't get him.  The man yells at the rat, "I need you to please come to the downstairs and let my cat hunt you so he will give me his blanket, which I will take to the rooster, who will then give me a chick, which I will take to the dog, who will then give me my newspaper.  Come down stairs.  You just have to let him chase you!"

The rat says to him, "Not so fast!  I have had too many brothers and sisters die from the mouse traps you have put all around the house.  Disable them, give me the cheese, and i'll be bait for your cat."

The man goes to gather the cheese from the traps, but snaps his fingers in one of them and drops the cheese.  The cheese falls downstairs and lands on the lap of the man's daughter.  The man goes to his daughter sternly says, "Rita, you need to give me that cheese, so that I can give it to the rat, who will be bait for the cat, who will give me the blanket, which I will give to the rooster, who will give me a chick, which I will give to the dog, who will finally give me my newspaper!"

Rita thinks for a few moments, looks at him, smiling, and says, "Not so fast, Daddy!  I am bored... Give me the newspaper and the cheese is all yours."

The end.

Running in an infinite loop
Sourced via Pixabay

Author's note:
The original followed the same theme of the story told here starting with a farmer who can't get a pig to hop a fence and ends up going through a huge sequence of requests from dogs and cows and even fire and water to get it to finally hop over.  The biggest difference is I thought it would be really funny to make this story into an infinite loop at the end and have the father never get what he wanted.  This story was a lot of fun to make and I really enjoyed reading it when I was done!

Bibliography:
English 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