Week 13 Reading Diary: Beauty and the Beast

This week, I chose to read Europa's Fairy Book by Joseph Jacobs and illustrated by John Batten (1916) from the Europa unit. I was really happy with my choice, and my favorite story by far was Beauty and the Beast. Although by this point most people in class have read or even written about an original version of a Disney princess story, I still hadn't! So I decided that this was going to be my week for it!

I liked that this version of Beauty and the Beast was still incredibly recognizable to me even though I was only familiar with the movie. I also liked that the Beast was much less evil and that Belle was much less unhappy in this version. I still thought that Belle's cowardly dad was completely absurd and wrong, but it was nice that he was able to visit his daughter and see that she wasn't completely unhappy. 

If I were going to retell this story in a storytelling post, I would definitely want to include some of the classic elements such as the beautiful girl being trapped by the crazy guy. I don't know if I would want to have a happy ending. It seems like no matter how handsome and tortured he is, a guy shouldn't trap a woman in his home in order to date her. It is a really nice story though. Maybe I would have the girl trap the guy, that's kind of cool I think.

Week 12 Extra Reading Diary: The Canterbury Tales Continued

For an extra reading from the British unit, I chose to read the Canterbury Tales unit from the The Chaucer Story Book by Eva March Tappan (1908). I really enjoyed the first half of the reading, so I was extremely excited to finish the unit and read some more. The Priest who Learned to be a Philosopher was probably my favorite story from the second half of the unit. I wasn't sure where it was going at first, but I really liked the set-up of a priest that only worked for the dead and who was so super nice and fun that he didn't even have to pay rent! I feel like that would be quite the motivation for college students to be extra nice because rent is by far our biggest expense in most cases! I was so sad when the priest ended up getting tricked so badly! I feel like it's kind of his own fault since he's a priest and he was trying to learn how to do magic. The trickster did go to great lengths to fool him though, so maybe the blame was shared. I always think it's fun to read about tricks and stuff, so this story was right up my alley!

Week 11 Extra Reading Diary: Canterbury Tales

For an extra reading from the British unit, I chose to read the Canterbury Tales unit from the The Chaucer Story Book by Eva March Tappan (1908). Since I had already read the King Arthur stories, I loved that the first story in this unit cited a knight of the round table. It's not surprising since King Arthur is very pervasive and both stories are part of the British unit, but it was still a lot of fun. It was like a crossover episode on tv, which is always a ton of fun. Of the three units I read from the British unit (King Arthur, Robin Hood, and this one) I definitely like the Canterbury Tales the best so far. It could be just because these are told in the most understandable language and are somewhat more modern, but these stories really held my interest and made me want to continue reading even when I had other stuff I could have been doing. I definitely liked the Unknown Bride the best from the first half of the unit because it reminded me of an episode of the BBC show Sherlock for some reason. Maybe it was the title or the way the story was told, but I was just entranced from the first sentence to read the whole story and find out what happens to the knight. I loved that the old wife told the grumpy knight that just because she was poor and old didn't mean she wasn't kind. Although I don't know how nice it is to force a man to marry you in return for saving his life. I feel like she should have just automatically saved his life and wanted nothing in return if she was actually a good person.

King Midas and his ears

Week 12 Reading Diary: Robin Hood Continued

This week I decided to read the Robin Hood unit from The English and Scottish Popular Ballads by Francis James Child (1882-1898). I love that in the story with the Bishop Robin Hood actually fools him with his women's clothing! It seems so far-fetched that that would actually work. I also love that the story even included this because it's such a funny thing now to see movie stars or anyone dressed as another gender, so it's nice to know that it was a popular theme even way back when these ballads were sung! I loved the Maid Marian story because it was just so fun to hear about how awesome Marian was. She and Robin Hood were definitely the real deal, and it's obvious because even Little John was in on the Maid Marian worship. I would definitely want to include some sort of super beautiful awesome Maid Marian type in a storytelling post because she really seems to put everyone in Robin Hood's crew to shame with how much she likes Robin Hood. Robin Hood is such a master of disguise that I kind of can't believe people don't start catching him on it. It seems like he should be smarter by the time the King comes dressed in a disguise, but I guess in this time period how was a person supposed to know what a king or a Robin Hood actually looked like?

Bishop, by L. Rhead

Week 12 Reading Diary: Robin Hood

This week I decided to read the Robin Hood unit from The English and Scottish Popular Ballads by Francis James Child (1882-1898). I decided on this purely because I liked King Arthur so much and because I really liked the Robin Hood cartoon when I was a kid. It was definitely different to read ballads instead of a normal story. I liked being able to kind of make up a tune or read it like poetry, but it did occasionally confuse me. However, I thought it was fairly easy to follow the plot and really understand where the story was going. I had never thought before how much Katniss from The Hunger Games is basically a futuristic Robin Hood, but she definitely is and it's awesome. I wish I could make a storytelling post as awesome as those books and movies! I've never done that much with bows and arrows, but I can see now that the appeal is great. I loved when Robin Hood met Little John because even though things didn't start out great, you could still tell that they admired each other and would totally end up as friends. I like Robin Hood because even though he is a good guy, he's still tricky and likes to have fun, like when he meets Allen a Dale. It's like Robin Hood never stops being a little kid, but in the best way. He's obviously a lot like Peter Pan, especially because they both like the wear a lot of green and have a sort of cult following among young men within their respective stories.

man dressed as Robin Hood, 2006

Week 11 Reading Diary: King Arthur Continued

This week I'm reading King Arthur: Tales of the Round Table by Andrew Lang. This focus for the second half of the reading was much less on Arthur and much more on Lancelot. I like Galahad and Arthur much better for Lancelot because Lancelot doesn't have the best character in the world. I would not exactly describe him as galant, whereas Arthur and Galahad are really nice and kind and seem to be even better knights for that reason. I didn't really understand the whole Holy Graal thing until I wikipedia searched it. Between that and the Perilous Siege, there's a lot of confusing names of things in these King Arthur stories. Gawaine also seems like a less good knight, but that could be just because I don't like his name as much. Galahad is a really great name. I really liked that Sir Bors had to wear a different sort of garment until he fulfilled his quest. Little quirky stuff like that can really take a story from average to excellent just because I would have never thought of something so different. Everyone should have to wear a scarlet coat until they accomplish something awesome. The end of Arthur was sad, but he more interesting character when he was a young king who had to prove himself anyways. I was more sad when Galahad died because he still seemed like the best knight in the land, so that seemed like a pretty great loss.

Lancelot

Week 11 Reading Diary: King Arthur

This week I'm reading King Arthur: Tales of the Round Table by Andrew Lang. I've really enjoyed reading this, and I can't wait to get to the second half of the reading. Before reading this, I knew many of the stories of King Arthur, but I've gotten a lot of general clarification from reading the actual stories! I especially like trying to figure out and remember who is related to who. Arthur sure seems to have a lot of relatives. When I first start reading something new it's usually hard for me to keep the characters' names and descriptions straight, especially if they have alternate names that they will occasionally go by. This particular difficulty has made reading King Arthur stories especially challenging, but by reading the wikipedia pages and going through each story slowly, I think I'm really starting to get it. Many of the British unit stories sounded really interesting to me, so I may decide to do an extra reading unit this week or next week so that I can read all the stories that appeal to me! My favorite characters in these King Arthur stories so far is definitely Arthur himself. When he started crying because the Knights of the Round Table were going to go off and probably all die it was really touching. I'll have to try and add some crying kings to this week's storytelling post. I also like the villains in these stories because they have almost no motivation and they just seem grumpy and vindictive for no reason, which definitely makes their random acts of evil fun to keep up with!

The Holy Grail Appears at the Round Table

Week 9 Reading Diary: Myths and Legends of the Great Plains Continued

I finished up the second part of Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Katharine Judson (1913), and I really enjoyed this second half. I really liked the Legend of the Head of Gold. It was a different kind of story and it was unlike many others that I've read or heard of. It was a bit like Adam and Eve because there was a certain item that the boy in the story was not supposed to mess with, but he did it anyway. However, this story was different because it was good that he was messing with the gold and got a gold head because then he because well-respected because of it.

Before he got the golden head, he was a very lazy person, so I don't really understand where the shift was, expect for being motivated enough to not be too lazy to break a very important rule? I don't really understand the moral of this story besides that laziness is a big problem.

I liked reading all of the native american stories in this unit because the stories really have a purpose, but since they are usually relayed orally, they don't have the same hard-to-understand language as most religious texts. I think it's important to try and learn new things from different cultures so you can get a feel for the morals that guide diverse audiences.

 

Chief Bone Necklace, 1899

Week 9 Reading Diary: Myths and Legends of the Great Plains

This week I read Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Katharine Judson (1913). I was really excited about getting to read some Native American stories. My favorite from the first half of the reading was the creation story. I always like creation stories because every culture has one and they are all extremely unique even though they have certain things in common at times.

This particular great plains creation story from the Osage (Wazhá zhe group) people featured an elk who helped all the animals live on earth. I really liked that the animals could fly/float. I definitely want to write a story at some point this semester that involves flying. Everyone knows that flying dreams are the best kind, so I want to be sure and bring that fun aspect into a storytelling post.

The elk in the story is totally awesome because everyone trusts him so much. He allows the animals to live in a place that is covered in water and he provides the seeds for plants and vegetables. Obviously, the elk is really important to this culture.

In the Osage (Hoga group) creation story, the animals relied on the crawfish to provide land to live on after a few other animals had drowned. I liked this simple story, but there was no flying involved so that was a slight disappointment.

elk

Week 7: Filipino Tales Continued

Nelore cattle

This week I read Filipino Popular Tales from Dean Fansler's monumental Filipino Popular Tales, published in 1921. I've really liked this unit, and my favorite stories from the second half were pretty different from the first half of this unit.

I liked Why the Cow’s Skin is Loose on the Neck the most this time. I liked this story because it was about two friendly animals running away from their master together, and it told a sort of creation or "why something is so" story. I had never wondered why the cow has looser than many other animals, but now I know! It could be fun to do a storytelling post that explains something about another animal, or maybe even a human!

My second favorite from this unit Why the Cuttlefish and Squids produce a Black Liquid because it was the same kind of story as that of the cow. I like that this one was more of a punishment than the cow story because that gives the cuttlefish and the squids more motivation to have a boring special feature like squirting black liquid.

There's so many stories like this is so many different cultures that it always really interests me to see the commonalities and differences. Writing my own could be really fun because I would feel like I was creating a culture of my own with it's own myths and creation stories!

Week 7 Reading Diary: Filipino Popular Tales

This week I read Filipino Popular Tales from Dean Fansler's monumental Filipino Popular Tales, published in 1921. My favorite story from the first half of the reading was The Three Friends: the Monkey, the Dog, and the Carabao. It immediately caught my eye because my two best friends and I think that three is the perfect number for a balanced friendship. I also really like stories that are told in steps. Like first one thing happens with one character, then the next day another character tries the same thing and doesn't succeed either and so on.

This story started out like that, but then the ending was totally different. So I think if I was going to retell this story I would want to keep it going step by step until the final character tried something and succeeded. I also like that this story is all about cooking. I like to cook, but I think cooking is even more fun when I get to do it with my friends!

I really liked the part of the story where the three of the animal friends work together and the story goes "there is strength in unity." That's an important theme, even more so when it comes to friendship. This would be a really fun storytelling post if I kept some of the main characters and changed up the plot a bit.

boa constrictor

Week 6 Reading Diary: Brer Rabbit Tales Continued

This week I read the Brer Rabbit Unit from Joel Chandler Harris's series of books of Brer Rabbit tales. In this second section of reading, I think I found my favorite little story of them all. I liked the Mr. Rabbit and Mr. Bear story because it was a double trick! First, Brer Fox had to catch Brer Rabbit, then Brer Rabbit had to find a way out of it, and this time he did it by tricking Brer Bear! I also laughed every time the story mentioned goobers. This was probably mainly due to the Spongebob song "Goofy Goober," which is an American classic for sure.

I would describe Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox as frenemies. They pretend to be nice to each other half of the time, but their ultimate motivation for basically everything in life is to destroy each other by foiling the other one's plans! Everyone else in their social circle is basically just a pawn in their disputes and tricks. This is a lot like the leaders of two disputing cliques in a high school movie. The two clique leaders are usually the main ones feuding, but the other people in the movie get their own subplots usually. This could be a really fun way to retell the Brer Rabbit stories with humans instead of animals, which I think would be a really fun change up. Especially if I could make the main theme one of the proverbs from these stories!  

I really think these stories have lessons/morals that could be great in a sort of modern retelling. You just have to rethink the whole fox eating the rabbit thing!

 

illustration by A. B. Frost

Week 6 Reading Diary: Brer Rabbit Tales

This week I read the Brer Rabbit Unit from Joel Chandler Harris's series of books of Brer Rabbit tales. Before I read these stories, I had heard of Brer Rabbit, but my main exposure to the stories was from riding Splash Mountain about a million times at Disney World.

I really liked these stories because I always think trickery is fun to read about! I also liked getting to read up on the history of these stories on Wikipedia. The fact that all of the characters in these stories are animals makes me wonder if there is a way to retell the stories using human characters. Since the whole thing centers around Brer Fox eating Brer Rabbit that might be kind of difficult! 

Since so many of the stories are just short little details of the overall story or other random extra details, it could be fun to write a storytelling post like it is just another chapter in the story! It would also be fun to write in the same style, but I think that might be a bit too much of a challenge.

Usually my favorite parts of movies are the happy parts at the beginning, and I always wish I could just cut out the sad part before it gets happy in the end. However, in Splash Mountain, the sad part before it gets happy is the 50 foot drop, which is the best part of the ride! So maybe in my storytelling post this week I'll give the story a really good sad part before it gets happy in honor of Disney World and Brer Rabbit!

illustration by A. B. Frost

Week 4 Reading Diary: Arabian Nights

Persian miniature: a polo match

I really liked reading all of these framework/nested stories in the Arabian Nights unit from The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898). My favorites were towards the end. I liked the story of the king being cured of leprosy and the jealous vizir, and the following story was with the parrot was very entertaining as well!

I liked the magic in the story with the king being cured because it made me wonder how it was done. Sometimes I think stories give a little too much detail, and I know that I don't like to leave anything up to the imagination by the end of the story if I can help it. But by nesting several short stories together, these Arabian Night stories left a lot up to the imagination! Also, almost all of these stories seemed to involve someone feeling jealous or wronged, which I thought was really funny as well.

In the story with the parrot, the wife felt wronged that the parrot had told her husband what she was doing, so she tricked the parrot. I don't really understand why the husband was so mad that he killed the parrot, however. But I guess if you trust something, lying is a pretty big deal, even if it is only a bird. I feel like it could be fun to tell this story because the story of the parrot is very short. So even in one of my weekly storytelling posts I could use the framework story technique as long as I keep the nested story short, like this parrot one!

Week 5 Reading Diary: Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp

illustration by Walter Crane

For an extra reading this week, I read part B of the Arabian Nights unit. Story source: The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898). I have never liked most stories about love at first sight, but Aladdin has always been one of my favorites despite this! It was really interesting to hear the original. I liked how the mother and Aladdin worked together, and I liked that Aladdin wasn't quite as hopeless/helpless as he is in the Disney movie!

Another thing I really liked about this story was all of the trickery! It seems like things would be a lot easy if the characters in this story would stop lying to each other and just be honest, but that would make things so much less exciting! It was really great that Aladdin stayed humble and kind instead of becoming stuck up since he lived in great honor and wealth.

It seemed strange that that the villain was jealous of Aladdin. It seems like he should be glad that Aladdin wasn't dead after all. I was also surprised that the Princess fell for the new for old lamps scheme. Who would listen to a crazy old guy in the streets? And then when the princess also fell for the fake holy woman, I was surprised again! I was just glad that Aladdin and the princess lived happily. However, I was disappointed that he didn't free the genies.

Week 5 Reading Diary: The Life of Buddha Continued

Kanthaka

Kanthaka, the horse who took Buddha to his hermitage, really stood out to me in this reading. Horses are so special to so many people, that I think it was amazing that as soon as Kanthaka came home from taking Buddha, he immediately died. I like to think that he was old and knew it was his time after he had been in so many battles with Buddha's father, but his love for his family was so strong that he wanted to stay and help Buddha fulfill his life's purpose before he died. 

I also liked how much the women in Buddha's life stuck together after he went away. Their love for him united them, and I think that's very important. Once he actually became the Buddha, I thought the realizations he made were very important. These were the problems, such as death and sickness, that had led him away from his family. I liked his realization about each evil of the world being a direct response to a good thing.

Within this story from the Buddha unit; The Life of Buddha by Andre Ferdinand Herold (1922).t's also important that Buddha now go and illuminate the problems of others and teach them about his own realizations and how he overcame a sheltered and protected life in order to find truth in the world. There's a lot of different dimensions within the life of Buddha that could be made into really great stories.

Week 5 Reading Diary: The Life of Buddha

ascetic Buddha

This week I read about the life of Buddha from the Buddha unit. Story source: The Life of Buddha by Andre Ferdinand Herold (1922). I really liked reading about the Buddha's birth and youth because I always think it's nice to hear about a famous person's childhood. I think that's why most memoirs start out with a person's earliest memory; it's just so interesting to think of noteworthy people as babies!

I thought it was so funny how devastated Buddha was once he found out about all of the sad things in life like sickness, old age, and death. I don't know a lot about Buddha, but it was really interesting to read exactly how sheltered and loved he was. I think that it could be fun to retell this story with Buddha being a spoiled brat. Maybe he would see all these sad things and be convinced that they wouldn't affect him because he is rich and has a loving family.

I also really liked Buddha's adoptive mother, so I feel like I would want to include a character like this who loved Buddha so much and took over for her sister. Buddha has so much love and support in his life, it's truly amazing that he would be able to leave all of that in order to live the life of a monk!

Week 4 Reading Diary continued: The Two Brothers

The story The Two Brothers from the Egyptian Myth and Legend by Donald Mackenzie (1907) in the Ancient Egyptian Myths and Stories Unit immediately stood out to me because I always like stories that involve siblings since my brother and I are very close. This story is really cool because the brothers get in a small fight over the older brother's wife, but then they make up and remain close for the rest of the story. Even when the younger brother keeps having his soul carried in different vessels (a branch, a seed, a bull, a tree, and a baby).

flowering acacia

I really like the magic in this story with the soul being carried through in different ways. I had never heard of an acacia, and so it was cool to read what kind of tree the brother ended up having his soul carried in.  I really didn't like that both of the women in this story were evil. If I retold this story in a storytelling post I would probably make the siblings or their significant others mixed gender so that it wouldn't be a story about two brothers who were awesome and their wives who kept messing things up for them. 

Other elements of the story that I liked were the change in setting. In following along with this story I felt that I got to read about many different places. In my usual storytelling posts I just stick to one setting, so it would be cool to try to get in an extra setting or two, even though the stories are pretty short.

Week 4 Reading Diary: The Death of Osiris

For week 4, I chose the Ancient Egyptian Myths and Stories Unit. I grew up always wanting to go to Egypt, and this weeks reading was like a free trip since I got to read so many stories that I had never heard before! Because I was so unfamiliar with a lot of the characters and their backstories/character traits, I found some of these stories a little hard to follow, but I found some incredibly interesting! I can't wait to do the second half of the reading so that I can get even more into this awesome ancient culture.

The story that stood out the most to me was The Death of Osiris. It reminded me of my favorite Disney Princess, Cinderella! Except the evil version because Osiris fits into the chest and it kills him. But I can still totally see a mash-up of these two stories working together so well. For example, instead of Osiris meeting a prince, his death makes the one who loves him super sad. I'll have to think some more about how Cinderella and Osiris can be united into one, but I think the general framework of fitting into something in order to win a competition is such a cool idea that you could really play with a lot.



Image information: Osiris from Wikimedia

Story source: Egyptian Myth and Legend by Donald Mackenzie (1907)

Week 3 Reading Diary, continued: Noah

Drunkenness of Noah, Michelangelo

When I finished the Noah unit from The Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg (1909), I was interested in the differences between the ways the same stories were told between reading A and reading B. It's almost like these were retellings too, which made me excited to start brainstorming for possible storytelling posts.

Again, I was the most interested in the events surrounding Noah's ark. However, I really liked the story of Noah's sons finding him naked because it just seemed so strange to me that it was such a big deal that his sons respect Noah by not seeing him naked. I bet that their naked bodies looked a lot like Noah's, so it seemed strange that the son who saw him first was so harshly punished in the generations to come.

The one thing I'm looking forward to the most in my storytelling post is making these stories more straightforward and with fewer characters. I get so lost with all the generations and complicated relationships between them, that it will be my goal to have a storytelling post with as few characters as possible!

Noah is not written to be as flawless as he was in reading A, which I liked. I thought it was really strange that he couldn't perform priestly duties because a lion had maimed him. Small details like this are what I think makes a story interesting, so I'll have to add a lot like that in my storytelling post.