My Blog for Myth and Folklore

Jason and the Giant's Gold Jason had always been a poor peasant, unknown by most. He had a job as a shepherd for the Lord of the lands and it provided for himself, his mothers, and his sisters and he was grateful for it. However, he was with the sheep night and day and was unable to do little else. If he didn't have this job, his family would have starved when his father died some years back and so Jason worked hard, both to support his family and from the gratitude he felt toward the Lord for trusting him with his flocks. However, some days back, he had left the sheep, for a little while, when he had come across a giant. He thought that would be the end of him and he briefly wondered who would take care of his family when he died but the giant hadn't killed him. It had needed his help and as a reward, it had taken him to a giant celebration. It had given him a belt of invisibility so he would be safe from the other giants and in this way, Jason had been able to witness...

This is the second part of I the  Lang European Fairytales I Unit  by Andrew Lang. I Know What I Have Learned In this tale, a father has three daughters, each married to a troll. He visits them and at the first's, the troll hits his head in order to get meat for broth and is unharmed, at the second's, the troll lights his fingers for candles and is unharmed, at the third's, the troll jumps in the water and scops out fish with a ladle. Each troll gives the father a sack of money but he leaves it outside in order to inquire about his cow who is about to give birth and it gets stolen. Finally, the father tries to imitate what the troll does and dies. Lovely Ilonka A prince goes on a quest and gets a bulrush which turns into a beautiful woman. However, when he goes to fetch her, a swineherd throws her in the well and pretends his daughter is Ilonka. The prince knows something is wrong but accepts the swineherd's daughter. Later, a coachman draws water and finds a duck...

This week I read the Lang European Fairytales I Unit by Andrew Lang. I knew the Puss in Boots story but I was unfamiliar with the others so it was fun to read some new tales. The Master Cat, or Puss in Boots In this story, a man dies and leaves his goods to his three sons. The first gets a mill, the second gets a donkey, and the third gets the cat. The boy with the cat thinks he will have to eat the cat and then die. However, the cat tells him to get him boots and a bag and he will help him. With these things he goes and catches game and takes it to the king, pretending it is from his master, a rich marquis. One day, he tells his owner to get in the river and as the king goes by, he cries out saying his master is drowning after thieves stole his clothes. The king dresses the "Marquis" and as they ride through the fields, Puss goes ahead and tells all the workers to tell the king that these are the marquis' lands. He reaches a castle owned by an ogre and challenges hi...

In this class this week, I read the King Arthur unit. I know the stories like I am sure most people do. I have seen the Disney version and the BBC "Merlin" TV show. But I haven't actually read that many of the stories themselves. I found them very interesting, especially since I didn't realize how Christian and even Catholic they where. There was an interesting note in the unit about how the Holy Graal is a mixture of Christian and heathen tradition that has gotten mixed together.  As a Catholic, this week was a busy one. The Masses during Easter week are the longest of the year. The service on Good Friday was over two hours and the Easter Vigil was over three hours long! They are time-consuming, especially since the Church is an hour away from me but it was worth the drive. I think these are also the most beautiful services during the year as well.  Because of the amount of time I spent in the car and at Church, I had to do some finishing up this morning for m...

Lady Bridget Lady Bridget, sister of Sir Percivale of King Arthur's round table, stood at the railing of the ship and looked out over the waves. She'd been on board the vessel for weeks now but still, she marveled at how all this came to be. She had been at her manor, following her ordinary habits when a shining knight, fully equipped in all white armor approached. Normally, she would have been frightened at such a sudden appearance, however, all she felt was peace and knew immediately this knight was not of this world. So she stood and waited until he neared and then he hailed her. "Lady Bridget, sister of Sir Percivale, I have a request to make of you. You have heard, I am certain, how one hundred and fifty knights left the round table in order to search for the Holy Graal, despite Arthur's sorrow and protests. They seek something many are not worthy of finding and they will die for it. But, three knights are worthy. Sir Galahad, the best and most virtuous of t...

This is my second reading note for the  King Authur  by Andrew Lang unit: Sir Galahad and the White Knight Sir Galahad meets a few other knights that are seeking a shield that is said to one be able to be wielded by the best of the knights. They find it and one takes it but asks Galahad to wait and see what happens to him. He is struck down by a White Knight who sends the shield back to Galahad, saying he is the only one who can wield it. Sir Lancelot's Vision Sir Lancelot finds a chapel but is unable to enter it because he is not worthy. He falls asleep and another knight arrives and sees the Graal. However, Sir Lancelot is not able to wake up. The knight takes Lancelot's sword and Lancelot vows to be better. The Adventure of Sir Percivale  Sir Percivale has no horse, so a woman gives him one but when he does the sign of the cross it runs off and he realizes it is a demon. He goes on foot until he comes across a serpent killing a young lion. Percivale defeats th...

This week I read King Authur by Andrew Lang. For the first part if the unit, we went through several stories: The Drawing of the Story Arthur draws the sword for his foster brother Sir Kay so that he will have a sword for the tournament. It is quickly realized that it is the sword in the stone and secretly, he is the son of the former king, Uther Pendragon. I was surprised that Arthur and Sir Kay got along, unlike the Disney version. The Questing Beast Arthur sees a strange beast that brays like hounds, chased by Sir Pellinore. Arthur wants to go after the beast himself but Pellinore says it will be either him or one of his line who kills it. Later, Merlin comes and speaks of his own death and of Arthur's. The Sword Excalibur In this story, Merlin helps Arthur get Excalibur from the lady in the lake who gives it to him in return for a gift of her choosing. She doesn't specify what that will be. The Round Table When Arthur decides he wants to marry Guenevere, the...

This week, I researched topics for my final story. I looked at a few Aesop's fables in order to determine my exact theme. Here are the stories I looked at, they are all pretty short but they share similar themes. Perhaps by looking at them, you can guess how my last story is going to go? Each of these stories were taken from Aesop's Fables by V.S. Vernon Jones. The Wolf and his Shadow In this story, a wolf sees his shadow and notices how large it is. He then thinks that he is huge and that he is greater than lions, however, at that moment, a lion comes by and pounces on him. The wolf realizes that he was foolish in thinking he was greater than lions just by the size of his shadow. The Cat and the Fox In this story, a fox brags about how many talents he has compared to a cat. However, a pack of dogs appears and, while the cat climbs a tree, the fox is killed by the dogs. The Stag and the Hunter   In this story, a stag sees his mighty horns in a reflection and realize...

The Story of Beowulf  by Strafford Riggs  In the second half of the unit, Grendel attacks the hall and puts everyone into a magical sleep. Except, Beowulf wasn't asleep so he is able to fight against the spell. Grendel breaks in and kills one man but while he is devouring him, Beowulf wakes up and the two fight together. The are fairly well matched, until Beowulf is able to get a hold on one of Grendel's arms and rips it off. With that, Grendel runs away and the others wake up. The next day, they celebrate but that night, one of Hrothgar's men is killed and they realize that they forgot about Grendel's monster mother who has taken revenge for her son and will continue to kill them. Beowulf vows to fight her too, so he, his men and king Hrothgar and his men track Grendel's mother with hounds until they reach a murky pond. Beowulf jumps in alone and descends to the bottom. For a while, it is pitch black and he has to strike out blindly against things that pass h...

For this week, I read Beowulf. I had read the story previously in high school but it has been a while and I am glad I get to revisit it and refresh my memory. The Story of Beowulf by Strafford Riggs  We are first introduced to the Geats of Geatland, a mountainous country with a large expanse of coastline. The Geats are ruled by their king, Hygelac. There are many formidable warriors there who fend off the monsters lurking in the forest and the sea. His nephew is Beowulf, who is known for his strength, however, people see him as a sluggard because he hasn't proven himself and seems to only have favor with his king because of their kinship. Most of them are either disdainful of him or jealous and, therefore, he has grown up to be a solemn loner type. Finally, a Wanderer comes and tells them of the plight of their neighbors, the Danes in Daneland, where King Hrothgar and his people are being attacked by the monster, Grendel. For twelve years he has killed their warrior unt...

The Attack on the Great Elk Jona reached the last of the trees and stopped just before he stepped out in the open. Out on the plain the Great Elk lay sleeping. It was a towering beast, capable of leveling mountains and flattening villages in one stride. Not only that, it was a killer. Hundreds of Jona's people had been taken by the beast. It didn't eat them, no, it was an herbivore. This thing killed for sport but that was over now. Years ago, Jona's mother had prayed to the Spirits for an end to the terrible beast. The Spirits had answered by giving her Jona. His entire life he had prepared for this and now, finally, his training had come to an end. His mother had finished making his powerful bow and his strong arrows. He had taken them up and trekked to the land where the Great Elk dwelt. Unfortunately, with the large plain between himself and the beast, there was no way to get close enough to kill it. The Elk was said to have impenetrable hide. Besides that, it had...

Hero Tales by Stith Thompson The Jealous Uncle An uncle kept trying to kill his nephew in various ways however the boy always cleverly survived. The last time, the uncle trapped him in a box and dropped it into the ocean. He floated to the land of Eagles where he married the chief's daughter. Wearing an eagle coat he flew back to his village where he punished his uncle before carrying his parents back to his new home. Bluejay and his Companions Bluejay and a few others went out and caught seals, however, they were mean to Grouse. Grouse got his revenge by creating a wooden seal which carried Bluejay's canoe way off course. On the way home, they stopped at a few enemy villages where they had to beat the villagers in various challenges in order to survive. Finally, they got back to their own village and were nicer to Grouse after that. The Attack on the Giant Elk and the Great Eagle There used to be a giant elk and giant eagles, however, they kept killing people until ...

This week I researched potential topics for my project's second story. I mainly browsed different urban legend articles on Snoops. I still haven't completely nailed down what my story will be about but I have a few ideas and even if urban legends aren't the primary topic, given my characters, I think they might come up. And to be honest, I am never super clear about how my story will go when I begin so I think I'll be fine.  Here are a few links to articles I looked at:  Scary Urban Legends 25 Hottest Urban Legends Most Popular Urban Legends of 2015      <- this one was mostly just funny. I didn't know most of them so I guess I am out of the loop when it comes to Urban Legends.  I looked up "Confused" on google and this came up. It does not portray my feelings but it did make me confused as to why it was a result so here you go:  Photo Credit: maxpixel

Alaskan Legends Unit  by Katherine Berry Judson To continue, this set of stories was not always about Ravens, like the last set. The first story was about a woman who accidentally married a Bear (since they can look like people when they want to). She was unhappy but couldn't leave until a sea spirit helped her escape. She then married him but left to raise her son with her people. She made a Chilkat blanket for him which Raven later taught the pattern to different tribes. Another story spoke of the first woman which two men pulled apart. They then fixed her with wood. So some of the women are bad at dancing since their legs are wood and some women are bad at sewing since their hands are wood. In another story, a couple created a doll which went around to the sky wall and cut open the skin coverings so that wind could come through. This is the wind orgin story. In another story, the wolves tricked deer into laughing and saw they had no teeth. Therefore, they attacked them...

Alaskan Legends Unit by Katherine Berry Judson This was an interesting set of stories, mainly to do with Raven which is seen as almost a god in the tales. In the first few, Raven creates a bean plant and out of the pod comes Man. Raven then creates animals and birds for him, as well as a wife. More men arrive out of the pod and he creates wives for them too. When children are born he helps them to grow fast. Later, he takes Man to the Skyland where there are dwarves and then into the sea. He creates bears to kill people because they are taking over and killing too many animals. Finally, angry, he takes away the sun but his brother dies and is reborn and Raven likes him so he is able to get the sun back. There is also a flood story and an explanation on how tides work. All of them have a raven in them, manipulating things. Raven marries a goose but is unable to keep up when they migrate. Raven eats a bunch of seals as well and later tricks Pitch into melting. Raven also ...

There once was a poor man called Sentaro who hated that he had very little money and had very few possessions in a very small house. He hated his meager life, however, he was never able to get a good job and didn't want to put into the effort to begin his own business. He heard of CEOs and company owner's who made millions of dollars and lived lives of luxury. Sentaro saw those people and wished he were them. He dreamed he was them. He even prayed for it. One night, he was so unhappy he couldn't sleep and instead, he fantasized his life as a billionaire elite. He was so focused on the imagination he almost didn't hear someone knocking on his door. However, it was an insistent type of rapping that quickly forced his attention.  Hurriedly, he opened the door and found what could have been an executive's assistant. A young man wearing a crisp, tailored suit and sunglasses despite the fact that it was nighttime. The man thrust out his hands as soon as the door opene...

Japenese Fairytales,  Ozaki  by Yei Theodora Ozaki My notes from the second half of the unit: The Goblin of Adachigahara The people were scared to go to a certain place after dark and avoided it when they could even during the day because there were stories of a cannibal goblin who lived there and ate men. A priest was walking all day and it had grown cold so he began searching for a place to sleep. He saw a tumbledown cottage and went to it. He met an old woman there who allowed him to stay the night. However, when she went to get firewood, he peeked into the back room and found if filled with human blood and bones. He ran away and though the goblin chased, it did not catch him. The Ogre of Rashomon In this story, again a village had tales of an ogre who ate men after dark. A band of knights spoke together about whether or not it was true. One of the knights went to find out. He found the ogre and fought it but it ran away. He had cut off his arm, however, and kept it ...

So this tech tip has been plaguing me for awhile. For some mysterious reason, I couldn't post comments from my laptop. I tried using different browsers, I tried clearing my cookies, I tried clearing my cache, I even tried adding a different account to my blogger to see if that would work. Nothing did. Finally, I admitted defeat and just began typing up my comments and emailing them to myself so I could post them on a different computer while I was on campus. It was annoying but it worked. Today, I happened to notice that my Privacy Badger ad-blocker was blocking Blogger.com. I checked and my Ghostry blocker was doing the same thing. Once I turned it off Ghostry and Badger I was immediately able to post comments. I have told Ghostry to trust the Blogger site and I taught my Badger not to block it either. I really like Privacy Badger especially, because it is local only to your computer so you can teach it to act in the way you want it to. It is still blocking other things o...

Japenese Fairytales,  Ozaki  by Yei Theodora Ozaki In this unit, there have been three stories so far: My Lord Bag of Rice In this story the name of Tawara Toda, which means "My Lord Bag of Rice" is explained. He was a brave warrior who came across a large dragon on a bridge. Instead of running away, he just climbed over the dragon and continued going, however, someone called out to him and when he looked back he discovered a person where the dragon had been. It was the Dragon King whose family was being killed by a giant centipede every night and he begged for the warrior's help. The warrior agreed and went to wait for the centipede. As it came down a mountain, he shot it with an arrow tipped in saliva which killed the centipede. The Dragon King was so grateful, he gave the warrior, among other things, a sack of rice which never ran out. The Adventures of Kintaro A warrior married a woman, however, he died and his wife ran away to the wilderness in fear of his e...

I feel pretty good about my progress so far. I only missed one assignment and I have made up for it and then some with extra credit so I still have over a perfect score in the class. My goal is to do all of the assignments from now on and to potentially work on some extra credits if I have time, just in case things get busy and I forget something. I am pretty happy with how things have been going and with my schedule. I really like reading and I have enjoyed writing stories as well. I am most proud of my project which has been difficult because of the verse which I am not naturally good at. I have been able to work most on this class on the weekends when I have lots of time and that has been working well. Blogging was difficult at first, I kept forgetting things and I would have to go back and update my posts. I think I have a better handle on it now. Blogger is pretty straightforward and makes it easy. I still am not completely satisfied with my website but I plan on messing aroun...

I have gotten lots of comments on my blog. Some of them are simply friendly and conversational, others are critiques of my work. I find all types of comments useful but I have especially found the comments on my project to be helpful. The conversational comments help me to feel like I did things right and that I should keep doing things in a similar way. The ones that critique my writing help me to see my errors and correct them. The comments I have gotten on my project are the most useful to me since I am still working on my project and can change things during my revisions. I hope I am leaving good feedback for my classmates. For the shorter comments, I try to keep the tone friendly and conversational, while also being helpful, especially for their story posts. For the longer feedback comments, I try to give advice in a useful but also friendly manner. I like to point out things I like first and end on a good note while inserting critiques in the middle. I also try to make sure the...

Taking a break this week has been really nice and I have enjoyed looking over my stories and my reading notes. I especially like my stories. I took a while to think of exactly what I wanted to write about before I began my stories and I still like what I ended up with. I especially like the pictures I have chosen for my stories and my reading notes. I wish I could use them for other things as well. I really liked the theme of my blog. It is simplistic but easy to follow, however, I changed the accent colors from orange to teal. I don't really like orange and since I am an OU student I thought it was best to get rid of it! I also added my name to my project site so that, in case people forget whose project they clicked on, they won't have to search too hard to find my name. I am pretty unfamiliar with the project site so I imagine I will play around with it some more as we continue. I like the way mine looks but there are still some things I want to tweak here and there. I ...

After becoming a captain of my own ship, I took off from earth and quickly left the atmosphere, piloting my ship on a well-known trading route to various planets which were friendly toward earth and toward exchange. We carried with us all sorts of things, that though common to us, were novelties where we were going. Everything was fine until the ship stalled. The maintenance workers were sure they could fix it but in the meantime, as we were passing a small planet which appeared to be uninhabited, I gave permission to send a small ship down so the crew could look about.  I joined them and fairly soon we were down on the rocky surface of the planet. We hadn't gotten far when the ground beneath us jolted and we were thrown off our feet. There was another shudder and I realized we were not standing on a planet but on a giant monster! I even glimpsed its head before it lurched again.  Several of the crew members were launched off the monster's back; the rest ...

Here is a photo of a fox, which appeared in several of the stories, photo credit:  pixnio Here are my second notes from my favorite parts of the  Chinese Fairy Book  by R. Wilhelm, translated by Frederick H. Martens. The Little Hunting Dog A man lived by himself but was plagued with fleas and gnats. One day a swarm of tiny hunters, no more than two inches tall, arrived with hunting dogs and falcons. They killed all the fleas and gnats and then went away again. However, they left behind one hunting dog. The man made it a home in a box and every day the dog searched his bed and killed all the fleas. One night, the dog climbed into his bed to sleep with him but the man rolled over and squished it. Fox-Fire A poor man saw a fox breathing out an elixir of life. He crept up and stole it and ate it. For years, he could interact with the spirit world. He helped people with illnesses and became rich from the gifts of the grateful. One night he felt someone patting his b...

For this week, I read the readings from China, parts of the Chinese Fairy Book  by R. Wilhelm, translated by Frederick H. Martens. This unit is a bunch of individual stories. I have separated them out and written notes on my favorites below: The Favorite of Fortune and the Child of Ill Luck The daughter of an emperor who was born with bad luck marries a beggar because she believes he has good luck, which will change her own. Her father banishes her for this and she lives in poverty for eighteen years, while her husband leaves to find his fortunes. When he returns, he has become an emperor himself. He takes her to his palace and rewards her for waiting faithfully, however, because of her bad luck, she dies after eighteen days. Her luck never changes. The Cave of Beasts A father with seven daughters finds seven duck eggs which he wants to share with his wife, however, his wife gives them to the girls. The father is angered and takes two of the girls to leave in the mountai...