My Blog for Myth and Folklore

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 ...