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...