Crystel's Myth-Folklore Blog

After watching the first video, "Great Goddesses", it was more centered on how many goddesses of mythology are known to provide wealth and fertility. However they can also be a tad bit sneaky and have loopholes involved in their interests. It was also found that many ancient womanly statues had been found suggesting that maybe the/a woman was worshiped in the ancient times. In the second video, "Fire and Buffalo Goddesses" it is started with a story of these Hawaiian goddesses and how one had fell in love but became angry and decided to burn, with lava, the other sister's things. Long story short it is questioned whether our actions towards the gods influence their actions towards us. I feel like depending on the god's intentions, this could be a true thing. The third video explored Archetypes and Male Divinities. It was very interesting to see how usually in mythology how the sons of a god usually become conduits of their father's attributes. Yet, th...

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...

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...

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

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)

Eskimo Woman Posing for photographer Lomen Brothers in 1915. Overall, the majority stories don't really present a rising action that leads to the climax. Most of the climaxes catch you off guard as in you don't realize what is happening till it happens. I like that aspect of catching the audience off guard but at the same time I do like drawing up suspense. Next, there isn't much attention given to the setting in most of the stories. The author goes directly into the stories and dialogue and gets you involved into what is going on.  Bibliography: Eskimo Folk-Tales  by Knud Rasmussen with illustrations by native Eskimo artists (1921).

Flathead Family with Tipi One common theme between all the stories is their use of description. The types of description given are so simple yet provide us, the audience, with a vivid image of what is being described. Such as, "The winds came from all sides and they blew until the waters went upwards, as in a mist." This sentence to me is so vivid in imaging what this scene looks like. Another note to be made is how there is a lot of repetition within each story and amoung them all. In the individual stories, you can see how they came about choosing their animal of importance by giving trial to all others and very shortly explaining why the other animals could not succeed. Overall you can see repetition between all the stories by just the use of having animals be the wise ones or for showing the people how to live. Lastly, the stories all use a very simple way of talking and explaining things. The don't use big or difficult words to get the meanings and lessons acr...

Extra Credit After watching the videos, it put into perspective how we do not know whether a myth or folklore is real or even had truth. The aspect of having these stories passed down for generations/centuries and supposedly staying true to the story also holds significance as well. Therefore it adds a kind of questioning feeling as to whether it could really be true if there are multiple accounts of the same story throughout the whole world. Looking at it, it seems to be more of the lessons behind the stories that are being retold and staying alive through time. This can be applied to my storybook in the aspect of keeping the main story essentially and the lessons learned from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet yet changing the way its told. Video Bibliography: What Is Myth? Crash Course World Mythology #1 Theories of Myth: Crash Course World Mythology #12 The Hero's Journey and the Monomyth: Crash Course World Mythology #25

Japanese Ogre Art For today's notes, I noticed how in the stories the author gives a good description of the problem/monster at hand. He/She goes into elaboration on the creature and then follows up with a story pertaining to a misconception at first by the wanderer/journeyer. Then later does a subtle reveal of the character and why the community people say the things they do about the monster. I also shows how use of rationality is needed more than personal needs and ego. Bibliography: Story source: Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki (1908).

Reading Notes Part B: Story #1 Two Brothers Flowering Acacia I really enjoyed how the author brought justice to the truthful. The ways in revealing the truths behind each injustice was really neat. Also the author showed how we naturally act without thinking when our hearts are involved such as Anpu listening to his wife and almost killing his brother without even hearing Bata's side at first. Lastly, having the truthful Bata win in the end was great in showing how those whom are shady don't win at the game. Story #2 Book of Thoth Papyrus of Ani In this story, I valued how the main character was determined and outsmarting the skeptics. I felt as though the language used with this story was easier to read and follow. The author also had very smooth transitions from beginning to climax to end with a witty ending to the overall story. Also the twist of the family all "dying" was very interesting since technically they were suppose to harness po...

First to note, I really took interest in how the Bidpai was able to reduce such mass amounts of reading into four paragraphs that summarized the main points of all the readings for the king. Since I am using the story of Romeo and Juliet, the original story is sought to be quite long and therefore implementing something as condensation of the story to the more important parts will be beneficial. (Image:  Maharaja of Indore ) Secondly, the overall theme of testing ones values/beliefs for if they are good, the recipient gifts the other with good things. Once again relating to my project, this theme is one I would like to employ in one of my versions of Romeo and Juliet. Being that in the original story, it was mostly centered on the tragedy, I would like to incorporate the test of good/bad and having the consequences shown. Lastly, seeing in the story of Romeo and Juliet, the thoughts of being superior or having really big dreams instead of thinking about the current times ...

Frontispiece to King James' Bible, 1611 This week I chose the story of Adam & Eve to take reading notes from. This is due to my storybook idea of the recreation of Romeo & Juliet. In the story of Adam & Eve it is noted how he was first with Lilith and things weren't working yet the angels and God wanted her with Adam. I compare this to Romeo and Rosaline and how he cared/loved so much for Rosaline yet she wasn't fond in returning the love which led him to Juliet, as Adam to Eve. To further evaluate, the instance when Eve was prompted and took the apple from the tree can be seen similar to Juliet being told not to be with Montague boy (Romeo) yet doing it anyways. This ultimately leads to the end of both of their lives, which is similar to God adding punishment to Adam and Eve. So overall what I have taken from part A readings is how to show the relationship between the things the characters do and what the resulting consequences are. Also, having a clear ...

Achilles Wounded by the Heel by Charles Alphonse Achille Gumery I chose this reading because of having to read it before for another class and wanting to see the difference in retelling. First and foremost, I love the passion behind each sentence Church retold. Even though the story is shorter, by means of being without minor details, it still tells of the core parts. Church delivers each emotion with such clarity yet also allowing you to draw your own personal feelings for the situation as well.  Another interesting aspect I am fond of is the way Homer incorporated the various gods and their respective parts they played in the war. We as an audience are shown both sides as to which gods are being prayed to and are actually holding their end of the "deal". Others we see acting vainly and doing their own which ultimately causes tragedy. I like this aspect of gods having thoughts on how they see the war ending cause this creates yet another layer of intensity within ...

Ghostly Woods of Mt. Penn  By: raistlin306 The author's use of imagery helped me to envision what is exactly happening and added a deeper sense of suspense. Also the description of the traditional clothing worn by both ghosts gives the audience a sense of time period of where they are from confirming the accusation of them being ghost. The plot of this story was well written in regards to the lesson of the story. When the author used the sentence, " He tore a hole in his blanket large enough to peep through", it added an element of surprise and made me feel as though I am the one looking through the hole. The fall of the story was smooth with small waves of tension with the fight between the to male characters, and gave an intense setting for the ending. However the ending of the story felt short and quick. I did not understand the switch in ghost characters at the end. I was hoping to read more about the woman that had came to him the night previously. So persona...

Thought-Provoking  By: Melissa Donovan The first unit I have interest in is the  Native American Marriage Tales . I gravitated towards this unit due to my own Native American background and hearing stories told when around family of how certain things became the way they are. I feel like this unit would be a good way to explore other tribes' stories and to delve into my own tribes'.  Next I chose  Homer's Iliad  as the second unit to explore. This comes from previous taking a class and having to read and analyze the characters and their meanings in the story. The Iliad is very fascinating as far as how Homer depicted each god and their respective role in the fight between Achilles and Hector. This would definitely be a unit to consider writing my own stories from. Lastly I chose  Dante's Inferno  to investigate due to hearing about the story but never being able to read it and analyze it. After reading the overview of the story, it intrigued m...