Myth Folklore

In my reading notes B I read about the European fairy tales because I wanted to see if they were different from the ones I would hear as a child. There was one story that stood out to me the most which was the story about the rooster that looked different from all the other roosters. In this story there was a rooster that was born and looked different from all of its siblings. It was regarded as ugly and different from all of them. The mother would worry about the rooster because she thought it would never grow to be a strong or powerful rooster. The rooster was a trouble child and would be mean to everyone even its mother. He would not listen to her and would be rude all the time. When they would go on trips he would leave the pack and wander by himself. When he would do this everyone would go and look for him because they were all worried sick. He decided one day to go to the king because he thought he would get a better life there. When he was on his way he encountered a stream that...

For the first story I read it was about a cat and its master. I knew of Puss in Boots in the movie Shrek but never thought that it was an actual character in old stories. I thought that it was made up for the movie but I was wrong. In this story the cat is very loyal to a man that at first wanted to kill it which is strange to me. In the story the cat told the man to let him be free and he will repay his owner in many different ways. He would trap animals and take them to the king over and over again so the king would know who he was and then would tell the king his owner was the one sending him. The owner had no idea that the cat was doing this with the king. When the cat knows that the king is going to coming by he tells his owner to go for a swim and then tells the king that his owner is drowning. He ends up tricking the king to get his owner saved and the owner sees the kings daughter falling in love instantly. The king then goes around the land and tries to find out more about the...

One of the main stories that popped out to me was the story about the Devil and his three wives. I don't know a lot about Italian culture but from what it seems marrying is a big deal to them. In this story the devil wanted to be married and decided to change himself into a handsome young man and marry a beautiful woman. When he became a man he created a house and then went to a family that had three sisters. He chose the oldest sister because he was attracted to her the most at the beginning. He then took her home after marrying her and made her promise not to open a door. I think since he was the devil the reason he did this was because he thought that no human was ever trust worthy enough to do this. He was right with the first and second sister but when it came to the third sister it was different. The third sister knew that the man had killed his two sisters and broke his trust right away. She then saw her two sisters in the fire behind the door and devised a plan to save them...

I love reading old stories because I see how much they have changed. Also sometimes they tend to stay the same. In this weeks reading most of the stories stayed the same throughout but the endings were a bit different. Also I read some stories that I have never heard of before which give a good insight of the old times they were written in. The first story that really caught my attention was the story of the goats and the wolfs. In this story the mother goat was leaving her children and warned them to be careful of the wolf because it will try and eat them. The mother told them that the wolf had a loud voice and had black paws so be on the lookout for these things. The wolf did try and come but the kids realized the first time it wasn't there mother by the sound of her voice. After that the wolf then went and ate chalk to make its voice soft. When it went to the house again the wolfs saw the paw of the wolf and said their mother did not have black paws. The wolf then went to a ba...

A lot of stories from the past talk a lot about trickery. Like the story Johnny-Cake was a version of the gingerbread man. I have never read the gingerbread story myself but I feel like this wasn't like the original at all. In this story a family was making a cake and while the cake was baking the mother and father left the house and told their son to watch over the cake. They said to make sure not to open the oven until it was done. The son couldn't wait and opened it up a little bit then the cake escaped while mocking the sun. He ran out the house and taunted the parents saying they could not catch him. He then ran by two well diggers and mocked them too saying they could not catch him either. Then he ran by a wolf and said the same thing. He then went to a bear and said he could not catch him and eventually the bear became too tired then just rested the night. The last thing he taunted was a fox and said that he could not catch him but the fox said he could not hear him so t...

In this weeks reading I chose to do fairy tales because I have always heard that fairy tales are darker then they seem. I have been told that since a kid the fairy tales I hear about are not the true original stories and have deeper meanings with much more going on in the stories. Some of the stories I recognized like the one about the three little pigs and others I did not like the one about the wizard and the book. The three little pigs story seemed like it was going to be the normal story but I never knew they had asked a man for the things to build their house. The version I heard was that the pigs just found the materials and made their houses. I had heard in one version the pigs just ran to the next house that was still standing and in another they were ate like in this version. I had never heard about how the final pig was being stalked by the wolf after he had tried to blow his brick house. The wolf tried to trick the pig into coming out of the house but the pig would always ...

Like most of the stories about the Native American tribes they have very beautiful descriptions as to why the world is the way it is. One of the stories talked about how the sun and moon were brother and sister. The sister was the sun and would stay on the east and the moon was the brother and would stay on the west. The sun would have a secret visitor once a month that would come to her and stay until she had to leave. She never saw his face but wanted to know who it was. She devised a plan to grab some ashes and put them on his face. She made up an excuse that she couldn't see his face and put the ash on him. When she went up the next day she saw the moon as well and saw the ash was on his face as well. The brother became embarrassed and decided to stay away from his sister except some days he would have to come near but would only be a sliver of himself. I think it's a beautiful story because I would have never imagined this myself. The Native Americans explain things in a v...

In the Eskimo folk tales the stories were a little different but still the same. The first story talked about how man came to be which is discussed a lot among the Native Americans and their stories. In the second story there was a group of brothers and there was one brother who didn't have a wife. Later on in the story that one brother heard one of his brothers talk about killing the brother with no wife. When he confronted his brother the one plotting to kill dropped dead. He was creating a monster through magical powers to kill his brother. Once he died the monster betrayed him and started to eat his brother. The brother with no wife went back to all of his brothers and didn't say anything about what had happened. A little while later they all got worried and decided to look for him. The brother with no wife told them they should look at the island where no one goes which is exactly where the brother had died. They get there and see what had happened but don't blame anyo...

The first story was like most of the stories I have read in the Native American section of this class. It talks about two animals and shows a lesson both of them learned in it. It also shows why they are the way they are today. I found that a lot of these stories give reasonings for why things are the way they are. There was another story that talked about why a rock has a hole around it. It said that a man was running away from a bear after he made the bear angry and they ran around the rock for sometime. After running around for a while there was a hole created around which helped the man survive. Later on in the story he also wanted to get some berries which required him to go underwater and almost caused him to drown. When he came back out of the water he was mad and hit the bush which cause the berries to come out. He then declared that this is how berries should come out of the bush and that is why people used to hit bushes so that the berries would come out. There was also sto...

For this reading notes I decided to read a different part of the stories besides from the California tribe. I felt like I learned a lot from the California stories and wanted to learn more about different tribes which I did. They are really different when you think about it because the California stories were mostly about how the world started but the Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes was about that a little too but more about the struggle between man and animals and also getting enough food for everyone. One story stuck out to me particularly which was about a boy who wanted food and decided to do a fast so that he may have a revelation. He had his revelation in the form of another boy and they wrestled for a couple of days around the same time. The boy that was the revelation was trying to help and basically died so that the boy doing the fast could get food. He said that the boy with the revelation must bury him and come clean his grave everyday. The next day when the boy wit...

Reading all of these stories was really interesting. It shows how the California tribes came up with their own idea of how the world was started and how little things came to be. The first stories were mostly about how the Sun and the Moon started along with the creation of man. Most of them had different stories but it was mostly the same. It wasn't surprising to me that for the Native American stories they started out with animals in most of them. I have a little bit of prior knowledge and know that animals mean a great deal to the Native Americans. They treat animals with much respect and only kill when they need to. I realized while reading the stories that in the California Native American tribes they talk a lot about coyotes. They hold them in such high esteem and even in some stories they talk about how life started because of the coyotes. It doesn't surprise me because it is the West Coast and there is a lot of coyotes to this very day so I imagine that back then they...

When I started reading this I really had no idea what to expect out of it. I knew that it was made a long time ago and I could tell that by the language and vocabulary used. You can tell that these stories were made to explain some of the natural stuff that happens in the world. The very first story was a story about someone tricking a powerful person so that they could be the powerful person instead. The main character had to use a lot of trickery to find ways to accomplish all the tasks that were given to them. In the end he did accomplish them all and tricked the powerful man. Most of the stories also talk about how Anansi was a really greedy person and because of that he would thrive in the beginning but by the end of the story he would end up losing everything. The story Thunder and Anansi was the perfect example for this. It started by Anansi trying to get food for his family but then is given a pot that will make meals for him. He starts to use the pot for himself and then t...

Homer's Odyssey For this week I chose Homer's Odyssey because I liked the Illiad a lot. I knew a little of the Illiad but coming into the Odyssey I had no clue what the story was about. After reading the description it was very interesting because it talks a lot about mythical creatures which I have been drawn to since I was a kid. The very first thing I noticed throughout the story was how descriptive it was. Homer describes the first island with the cyclopses with a lot of description. He mentioned how fertile the island was and how many animals were running around. This descriptiveness is something I might use in my storytelling because it painted a perfect picture in my head of what was happening. It adds a lot to the story because if you don't know the surroundings then it would be hard to imagine the cave they are trapped in. Another thing that stood out to me was Homer's intelligence. Homer stabbing the cyclops in the eye, Source The main character in t...

Homer's Illiad  retold by A. J. Church The second part of Homer's Illiad was a little bit easier to follow along because there wasn't as much detail needed. I already knew the back stories of the characters so it was as difficult to understand what motivated each character. Part B starts off with Achilles finding out that his best friend Patroclus has just died and the Trojans were trying to take his body away so that they could leave it for the dogs. This upsets Achilles very much so he decides to go out and fight Hector since that is who killed Patroclus. Achilles Fighting Hector, Source The only problem is that Achilles doesn't have any armor since he gave his to Patroclus so he gets some help and has his made for the next day. Before the armor is even done he goes out to the field and yells three times which scares the whole Trojan army. When his armor is finally done he goes out and finds Hector and then chases him around the city three times. Hector h...

Homer's Illiad retold by A. J. Church The story starts off with Homer telling us about a beautiful princess everyone wanted to marry. Before she had gotten married people knew that someone would come and try to take her from her husband and if that were to happy everyone would need to try and bring her back. The couple ran away to the City of Troy which was known as one of the strongest cities back then. The fighting took place for nine years and in that time the army was weak from being far from home for so long so they decided to raid other cities for supplies. I think the reason this all started was because Agamemnon was being greedy and wanted everything for himself. He refused to give the Priest's daughter back which made the Gods come after him and his fight to bring back the princess. Zeus on his throne, Source The God's have a huge part in this story even when they don't want to. Zeus tried not to intervene but saw what was happening as decided he ne...

The Man in the Moon   by Katherine Neville Fleeson This story was very interesting to me. It started off with someone complaining about being a blacksmith and they wanted to do something else. Then when he gets changed into the stone he doesn't like that because it hurts him when he is cut. It keeps going on and on because he can't decide what life he wants until he chooses the moon because he thinks it looks cool. He finds out that it is a really hot place then begs to be changed into the very first thing he was but is not allowed to. There is a strong message behind this story in my eyes. It's what makes the story great because it's saying that what you are in the first thing might be the thing you like the most and don't think other things are better just by looking at them. The man is still stuck as the Moon. Source I like how it didn't say that the wise man was God but he was just a person who controlled everything. I think that adds more descripti...

Beowulf The first unit that grabbed my attention was Beowulf. I have never read the story but I have heard the name plenty of times and was always interested in learning more about him. It was one of the very first units that popped out to me and when I saw it it made me happy to know that there is some stories that I might actually know. Dante's Inferno The same reason I clicked on Beowulf was the same reason that I clicked on Dante's Inferno. I have heard about this story many time and in my high school I knew there was a class that required the students to read it. I was however not in that class so I didn't get a chance to read it but now I will for sure make this one of the units that I read. Homer's Odyssey I know my three selections might be the most popular but I also chose them because I have not read them before and would like to. They are popular for a reason so it might be good for me to read about them. It seems like an interesting story since it...