Crystel's Myth-Folklore Blog

Hannah the Hedgehog THERE was once a countryman who had money and plenty of land but yet he was unhappy for he had no children. One day he became so upset he said, "I will have a child, even if it be a hedgehog." However when his wife conceived that hedgehog child, the man was still unhappy. Hannah the Hedgehog saw daily how unhappy her parents were to have her and thought of an idea. "Dear father, I will ride away and never come back again only if you bring me a fiddle from the market." The father rushed off to get a fiddle and not only did he get any old fiddle, but the very best one in hopes this would make the child stay away. Hannah took the fiddle and left as she had promised for that's all she had. She went deep into the forest and managed to find home in a mulberry bush where she played her fiddle day in and day out. One day a lost King came stumbling through the forest and heard the music. He was astonished at the sound and sent a serva...

Hans the Hedgehog on a Cock This story was very interesting to read, as are all the others of course. The moral of the story was essentially that you should do what you promise. We see that the first king was greedy in nature and did not want to give up his first sight. I wonder if this was due to age cause later we see that a second king came through the woods who was older. I feel like age played a part in the story as far as the second king being wiser. The story was told in a third person/narrator point of view and I wonder how it would be from a first person point of view with that being of the Hedgehog. I would like to re-write this story but have it from his perspective and also maybe make the Hedgehog a girl and have the king's promise her their hand in marriage.  Bibliography: Household Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , translated by Margaret Hunt (1884).

Bride Illustrated by Walter Crane For my reading notes part A I decided to do them over the story The Robber Bridegroom.  Right at the start of the story we are presented with repetition with the caged bird saying, "Turn back, turn back, thou pretty bride, Within this house thou must not bide, For here do evil things betide". The wording used and having this rhyme being repeated gives the audience a sudden urge of despair and worry as though we are feeling what the bride is. The actions leading up to this scene, the girl throwing out peas even though there is ash, are also important cause it foreshadows the insecurity felt by the girl and what's to come. The repetition returns again when the bride is recapping the story to her bridegroom saying, "Sweetheart, my dream is not yet ended" which symbolizes that she may be being interrupted and how important it is for her to finish. Bibliography: Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm translated b...

Once way back in a time long ago lived this old lady. She had snow white hair, a very round back, and a mole the size of a blueberry, on the corner of her lip. The old lady was seen to be out roaming upon the lands only late at night. However every night, when the moon was its highest, she would stop at a small pond and gaze at the castle that lie ahead. She would sit and stare at the illuminated castle for hours until the sun was near the horizon.  One night the old lady felt as though she was not alone and called out to her surroundings, "Who goes there?"  she called and received an answer from a very beautiful girl who wore the brightest of colors and of which the fabric was the best.  "It is I, for I have a secret that is eating me away! May I trust in you to tell?" The old lady nodded her head and the girl began to speak of it. As the sun began to rise, the old lady exclaimed how she must return home and for the girl to do the same. After tha...

Canterbury Tales' Pilgrims For reading part B of the Canterbury Tales, one story that caught my eye in particular was that of The Cock, the Hen, and the Fox. For the start of the story, the pilgrim tells two tales of two men. Within each he goes into showing how worthy dreams are....which doesn't pertain to the title. I feel this to maybe be an attempt to real the audience in and made me want to see when the cock, the hen, and the fox would come into play. For the ending of the story we get the story of the cock, the hen, and the fox finally yet there was no significance of the hen. However, the story ends with the strong lesson of "but bad luck to him who talks when he ought to hold his peace." This was surprising due to not realizing originally that's the reason the cock was able to be taken. Bibliography: The Chaucer Story Book  by Eva March Tappan (1908)

Man Reading Canterbury Tales I chose Canterbury Tales this week to do my reading notes over and hopefully also my story this week! The reasoning behind this selection was due to the overview about the tales. In this overview, it talks about how the Canterbury Tales is a group of tales told by seven pilgrims from that time. Each pilgrim gives count of different stories in a contest to see who can tell the best story. The main points that reel me into the stories are how each one has a very great and prominent climax such as in The Wife of Bath's Tale :Unknown Bride . The rising action in this story this makes us, the audience, sit on edge and eager to keep reading on what is to come. Then once we do find out what is happening, it contains such humor and twist that we are left feeling dumbfounded on the action! That specific trait of a humored plot twist makes the stories that much better. Also the ability of the writing to keep a sort of humor with the character's being dr...

I started off with Thanksgiving in honor of the holiday quickly approaching next week. I learned that some believe that the first day of thanks didn't occur in what is now the United States, but actually in Canada. In the past each state had a different date of celebrating Thanksgiving until October 31st, 1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed to have it always on the second to last Thursday in November for business reasons. Franklin made a huge impact on the economy while in office including his New Deal . This was a series of programs and financial reforms to help the people in response to the Great Depression . Most think of pictures of the Dust Bowl as the Great Depression, however that was just a product of the Great Depression. The GD was the first time the United States went into an economic recession. It caused major companies to close, unemployment, and poverty. Al Capone's Soup Kitchen During the Great Depression, 1931

Dog & Cat Deliberate Attention Meme One thing the video confirmed that I already knew before was how important sleep is and how much someone my age should be getting. (7-8hrs) One thing I learned was the condition of Fatal Familial Insomnia. This is a condition where your body won't let you fall asleep, which could long term lead to dementia or death. After watching the video, I want to try to get the recommended amount of sleep per night that I should. I am curious to see how it will effect my attention, learning experiences, and health. I will begin to plan out what time I need to go to bed by and actually act upon it.

The two quotes I chose for this Growth Mindset post are both things that I struggle with reminding myself. You Will Be Okay Cat Meme The first quote that caught my eye was the personal mantra of one student being, "You will be okay". As the semester goes and exams come up, dealing with working and making sure I have time to do my assignments is a daily struggle. Sometimes it becomes to big of a struggle to where I need to call my mom and talk out strategy of what to do next. At the end of the phone call she says "You will be okay" and just hearing that resonates with me and helps me get through it. R.E.L.A.X The second one being R.E.L.A.X. This means Rest and Energize yourself to Live life And Xplore. This really does hold an important message because I often pile so much onto my plate that I end up not taking care of my own self. I have been trying to tell myself that when I feel the tension but it still is so hard to allow myself to take a moment ...

Besides the fact of needing extra credit points, I chose to do my tech tip over Canvas because of reading about Laura's (our professor) experience with going to a Canvas workshop. I have noticed that I personally don't use the Dashboard To-Do sidebar that often. I usually go into the course and reference the sidebar there. After learning about the Dashboard I configured it to "list view" to try out for a while. I like how it shows me a day by day on when/what things are do. In general, I do like the Canvas Dashboard. It was definitely a change from the old system but glad to have it and its versatility.

Romeo Professing Love to Juliet After reading this version of Romeo and Juliet, it helped with figuring out how I wanted and needed to shorten the original story. In this story by Lamb, he takes caution to give special attention to the more important parts of the story and detailing them as such the audience still understands what is happening without having to read the original version by Shakespeare. I feel that is my biggest takeaway from reading this prose by Lamb. Also it acted as being very helpful in review of Romeo and Juliet. Bibliography: Tales from Shakespeare , Charles Lamb, 1878

Grammatical Lessons Over  Prescriptivists and Descriptivists by Andreea S. Calude For this week I decided to do a Story Lab over language, grammar, and punctuation. This decision came to me after having completed and receiving revisions on my first story. One of my biggest corrections needed was that of grammar. How to word things and realizing I was switching tenses, were both problems I needed to correct. After watching the TEDEd videos, I have realized that language is continuously revolving and how complex grammar actually is! Seeing how languages have formed and stemmed essentially from each other is amazing. One thing about grammar that really caught me was realizing that the last time when I was taught grammar was years ago in middle school. Therefore it makes sense why I missed such things and also why colleges encourage the taking of an intensive writing course. The video I posted above, and ones similar, will definitely be one I reference when writing my next story...

Wikipedia:  This Is the House That Jack Built My two focuses of this reading note is on that of beautiful sentences and character charting. Since theses stories are nursery rhymes, the way they are told must be in an uplifting way even though what is being said may not be exactly joyous. Such as in the rhyme of Jack and Jill, "Jack and Jill went up the hill To fetch a pail of water; Jack fell down and broke his crown, And Jill came tumbling after." As kids, singing this we laughed and joked about such a rhyme, but when you actually think about it, it is pretty sad cause Jack actually dies. Also through character charting we are given very important characteristics in short rhymes about a character. Being able to do such in my own storybook would be essential. Bibliography: Nursery Rhyme Book   edited by Andrew Lang and illustrated by L. Leslie Brooke (1897)