Mythology and Folklore Blog

Looking Back  Looking at the progress chart I am on track to get the A I was hoping to get in this class. I definitely dropped off on the extra credit reading I wanted to accomplish. This is not a total surprise as I tend to get busy in the middle of the semester and things drop off. I am really glad that I am a week ahead in all assignments as that was my goal all along. I definitely enjoy the readings the most. Mostly I'm proud of how far I have come in my writing. It's been so long since I had done any creative writing and I am pleasantly surprised by how I've done. Looking Forward For the coming weeks, I would definitely like to stop heavy loading this class on two days of the week. I'm hopeful that I can try and spread the assignments out more reasonably throughout the week. I would also like to become more confident in my dialogue writing skills. Since I am unsure of that aspect of writing I mostly try and avoid it. Especially in my storybook, I would like t...

Feedback In I would say I have been getting good feedback on some of my stories. Some stories have more comments than others which definitely helps there be more feedback. I would say I've had nice comments on my storybook comment wall but not that much constructive feedback to change it. So it would be helpful to get more tangible things to change. Part of the problem is definitely that I am purposely a week ahead in assignments in an effort to finish the class a little early before my capstone gets crazy. This has thrown off the feedbacks for me personally. Feedback Out I try to give more tangible feedback in my comments because that is something I like in mine. I would say that not all my comments are made equal. Sometimes I am more inspired than others and that really affects the quality of my comments. I try to stick somewhat to the WWW feedback strategy because I think it gives some structure to my comments. Blog Comments I definitely feel like I am getting to know ...

Looking Back I would say that writing for this class is harder than I anticipated. There are some days where I feel inspired and the writing really flows. Other times I really struggle to even come up with an idea and then I absolutely cannot write a story. I think that is pretty classic writer's block though. I think my use of the blogger has definitely gotten better and I like my blog. It fits the theme I decided for it which was just the color purple. The thing I have enjoyed the most this semester is the reading. I really do love to read fairytales and folktales. Some of the stories have really inspired me and surprised me. I loved the 22 Goblins reading from the Middle Eastern and Indian week. Those stories were really surprising and fun. I loved the riddle format. I've also enjoyed creating my storybook more than I thought I would. When I first heard about the project I kind of thought I would dread it and not have any ideas but I was actually really excited by the ...

The Ferret Gets His Karma (The Ferret Wikipedia Commons ) There once was a ferret who was married to a fox. The two were happy together and had a son that they named Austin. Despite their happiness, the two did not have enough food to provide for their small family.   Ferrets and foxes are well known for their cleverness and their magical abilities. Deciding to use these gifts, the ferret and fox hatched a plan to provide for their family. The fox would magic herself into a woman and sell the ferret to a merchant for its coat. The ferret would pretend to be dead and then escape once the merchant had handed over the money. The fox turned herself into an old woman and went into town. She sold the ferret and took the money to buy plenty of fruit and food for the family before returning home. The ferret played dead until the merchant set him down and then sprinted away back to his family in the forest. For a while the family was happy and all was well. As time went...

How the Wicked Tanuki Was Punished (A Tanuki from Wikipedia Commons ) Plot: A tanuki was married to a fox and had a son. He thought he was very clever so they decided to do a trick. The tanuki pretended to be dead and the fox transformed herself into a woman and sold the tanuki coat for profit. The tanuki then escaped when left for dead and his wife bought food for the family. The tanuki became greedy though and the next time they ran out of food made his wife pretend to be dead. Seeing an opportunity for extra food, he told the merchant the fox wasn't really dead. The merchant then killed the fox. The tanuki is very pleased with himself and begins neglecting his young son. The son grew up and realized what happened so he planned a trick on the tanuki. He told his father he was a better magician than him. This caused the tanuki to make a bet that his son could transform into any shape and he would recognize him. The son ran and hid under a bridge while the king's p...

The Maiden with the Wooden Helmet (Wooden Bowls from Wikipedia Commons ) Plot: A man and a wife lived in a village with their beautiful daughter. The family was once rich but lost its fortune over time. This makes the man very sad and he dies. The mother and her daughter made their way together. The mother noticed her daughter was getting more and more beautiful. This worried her as she knew the dangers beautiful girls have to worry about. She caught a cold and on her death bed asked her daughter to wear a wooden helmet which obscured her face. The girl agreed and the mother died. The girl gets a job working in the fields for a rich landowner. The other workers taunt her for wearing the helmet. One day the landowner's son comes home and sees the girl washing her face in a stream and falls desperately in love. He asks her to marry him every day. The girl refuses every day even though she likes him because she doesn't want to cause tensions. Her mother comes to her in a dr...

Collection of Articles from AdviceToWriters (Carl Hiassen from Wikipedia Commons ) For this story lab, I read two "listicles" with advice for writing, Neil Gaiman's 8 Good Writing Practices  and 22 Rules of Storytelling from Pixar . These articles were mostly just advice on forcing yourself to write and good storytelling practices. I liked that Neil Gaiman's article focused mostly on just forcing yourself to write. He focuses a lot on letting go of being perfect and just writing whatever weird thing you want first and then going back and fixing it. The Pixar article focused a lot more on the actual storytelling. A lot of the focus was on the characters themselves, making sure you have a character that people root for and has agency. In addition to the "listicles", I read an interview with Carl Hiassen . I chose to read this interview because when I was younger I remember really liking Hoot. I guess I didn't realize he mostly wrote adult fictio...

The Four Brothers who Brought a Dead Lion to Life. Which is to Blame when he Kills Them All? (Lion Skeleton from Wikipedia Commons ) Plot: Four brothers are born to a family. When the father dies they are left in poverty. Sad to be poor the oldest tries to kill himself. When he fails to do so the four brothers decide to travel around the world to learn some magic. The first brother learns to put the proper flesh on any skeleton. The second brother can put any hair or skin on a skeleton with the proper flesh. The third brother can put the eyes and other sensory organs on a skeleton with proper flesh and hair or skin. The fourth brother can bring any animal with the proper skeleton, flesh, skin or hair, and sensory organs to life. To prove their skills the four brothers go in search of a skeleton to demonstrate their skills. They happen upon a lion skeleton and each performs their magic. Once the lion is brought to life he eats all of them. Which brother is to blame for their deat...

The Girl who Transposed the Heads of her Husband and Brother. Which Combination of Head and Body is her Husband? (A Goblin from Wikipedia Commons ) Plot: A laundry man finds a beautiful woman and falls desperately in love. Their fathers arrange for them to be married. The two are very happy and in love. One day the husband goes to the temple and is inspired by his reverence for the goddess and decides to make a sacrifice of himself and beheads himself. His brother-in-law comes into the temple and seeing this is devastated and does the same thing. The wife comes in and is horrified to find her husband and brother both beheaded. Distraught she goes to hang herself in a tree. The goddess stops her and says that if she puts the heads back on the bodies they will awaken. In a rush, the woman accidentally puts the wrong head on each body. The goblin asks the king which is her husband, the body or the head? Her husband is the body with the husband's head and the brother's body ...

Tornado, Blizzard, and Rain Go to Dinner (The Sky on a Clear Day from Wikipedia Commons ) Three sisters, Tornado, Blizzard, and Rain, went to dinner with their aunt the Moon. The Moon had prepared a fantastic feast with the greatest delicacies in the universe. Tornado and Blizzard, the younger sisters, were so entranced by the feast they scarfed down all the food as it came. Rain was older and wiser than her sisters and as the meal went on she thought of their mother, Sun. With each course, Rain tucked some of the meal into her purse to bring home to Sun.  After dinner, the three sisters returned home to their mother. The Sun greeted each of her daughters pleasantly and asked how dinner had gone. The daughters began to enthusiastically describe the wonderful meal.  Turning to Tornado, Sun asked her, "Did you bring me anything from the feast?" Tornado responded, "No Mother I ate every single morsel?" Upset, Sun replied, "For your selfish...

From How the Sun, Moon, and Wind Went Out to Dinner (Sun and Moon from Nagy Imre Community Center )  Plot: The Sun, Moon, and Wind went out to dinner with their aunt and uncle, Thunder and Lightning. Their mother, a distant star, watched over everything for them. While they ate, the Moon put some of the food under her fingernail for her mother. The Sun and Wind did not think of their mother. When they went to see her after dinner, she asked what they brought her back. The Sun said she did not think of her mother as she was out enjoying dinner. The mother cursed the Sun and that is why her rays are so hot and miserable on hot days. The Wind also said she did not bring anything for her mother. Her mother cursed her and that is why on hot days the wind is so disagreeable in hot weather. The Moon shook out the wonderful meal she had saved for her mother. Please, the star blessed the Moon and that is why the Moon’s glow is gentle, beautiful, and cool. Characters: The selfi...

From The Charmed Ring (Cat and Dog by Charles Jervas on Wikipedia Commons ) Plot: A young man is given three hundred rupees by his father to make his fortune in the world. He immediately spends his money buying a cat, dog, and snake who were in danger of being hurt. His father is furious and throws him out of the house. The snake, it turns out, is the son of a man who possesses a magic ring, pot and spoon. The man and the snake travel to his home under a magical lake and the father give the young man his magic ring, pot, and spoon, as a thank you for saving his son. The son then returns to the surface where the magic ring creates a beautiful home with a beautiful princess inside who he marries. The pot and spoon provide them with all the food they could possibly want. One day the princess’s hair floats down the river to a nearby kingdom where a prince finds the hairs and falls impossibly in love with her. He is on his death bed pining for this unknown princess so his father, t...