Reading Notes: Week 02 Anthology

Initial Thoughts

    Once I started reading the anthology, I was hit with excitement. Excitement from starting the readings, but mostly it was the excitement of not only how lucky I was to be able to have the technology and resources to read all of the stories but the fact they all survived to the present day. There are so many stories, so many versions of stories, which haven't survived. The fact these stories have traveled through time to be cataloged in a place where anyone can look them up and read them is exciting!

The Chosen One

    By this, I just mean the story I've chosen to focus on. I liked most of them a lot but had four stories I liked over the rest of the anthology. Of those four, I chose two to focus on the most.

    In second place: The Tiger, The Brahman, and The Jackal. I liked this one because I have a soft spot for tigers in general, but mostly I liked it because I painfully understand the tiger. It's easy to get me riled up when it comes to communicating ideas (like how the jackal couldn't understand the scenario the brahman and tiger were describing). I don't get frustrated with the person I'm explaining something to, so much I get frustrated at myself for not being able to communicate efficiently. 10/10 I would also get re-trapped in a cage because I'm too stubborn to let a conversation go until the other person understands what I'm trying to say.

    Essentially, The Tiger by Joseph Jacobs from India is in this place because it made me laugh at both the jackal's antics and myself for being like the tiger.

    A quick honorable mention: The Indian Who Wrestled with a Ghost, a ghost story from the Teton Lakota (found in Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Katharine Berry Judson.) It's a story I've bookmarked in my mind and on my computer for later, mostly for the last paragraph:

                    "So the man won in wrestling. Also he killed his enemy

                    and stole some horses. It came out just as the ghost said.

                    That is why people believe what ghosts say." 

    I don't quite have anything for it at the moment, but I know this idea is going to bury itself in the back of my mind and grow into a really wonderful idea someday. Hopefully soon!

    In first place: The Eight-Forked Serpent of Koshi. It's a Japanese story written down by E. W. Champney and F. Champney. It was my favorite of the bunch, so I took more notes on it overall.

• The number 8
• In Japan, the number 8 is a holy number and is seen as something that is ever-growing. Why is it connected to the villain of the story?
• I noticed the repetition of the number and have always been a fan of numbers being a repeated motif or theme
• Were there ever versions in Kushinada-hime's POV?
• What was she thinking the entire time as a comb?
• Why a comb of all things?
• What if it was Kushinada who was doing all the cool things. A comb that takes over the host?
• Susa-no-wo's hair is described as disheveled, was it dirty? Wouldn't that suck, to be stuck in there?
• I wonder at her other seven sisters
• And why is the youngest sister always the one who gets the cool story?
• If the story were set somewhere else, how would it turn out?

Susanoo slaying the Yamata-no-Orochi. Toyohara Chilanobu. ca. 1870. (Source: WikiMedia Commons)