Folks of All Mythology

  Dancing with fairies. 1895. John D. Batten ( More Celtic Tales )     My favorite story from Part B of the unit was definitely "The Legend of Knockgrafton." In all, it was a really good story, came with a song, had the good guy get rewarded, and the unethical guy gets punished (even if it was a little overboard). Aside from the plot and characters, I really liked how it portrayed the fairies' behavior.     The idea of fairies being bright, merry, joyful creatures is mostly a Disney invention. In folklore, fairies (even the nice ones) are vindictive and fickle with a strict moral code tailored to each individual. Classical fairies are tough to deal with! Some are outright hostile. Others are easily agitated by violence. Most are gracious as long as you follow their rules.     But...what are their rules?     Excellent question!     Answer?     Who knows.     No, really. Depending on the story, the protagonist is e...

  Dream of Owen O'Mulready. 1895. John D. Batten. (Source:  More Celtic Fairy Tales )     "Dream of Owen O'Mulready" was my favorite story from this unit. This was partly because it was one of two stories that weren't sad, but it was mostly because the story is just a trip! Owen's dream was wild from start to finish. I really liked how there wasn't a clear transition. At the beginning of his dream, I really didn't know what was a dream and what was reality.  I mean, it became clear pretty soon, but when he's "woken up," the reader isn't clued in on the fact he's dreaming already.     In all, I'm fascinated by dreams. Are they our brain working through our stresses and thoughts? Are they pure nonsense? Somewhere in between? It's interesting how the basis of the story is because Owen had never had a dream. Since it's a fairy tale, it makes me wonder if he was born that way or cursed? Either would be very fairy-tale-clich...

  Farmer talking to Ivan. 1892. John D. Batten. (Source:  Celtic Fairy Tales )     The Tale of Ivan     Out of all the stories of Part B, maybe even the whole unit, "The Tale of Ivan" was my favorite. I liked Ivan as a character, which is not always something that happens with fairy tale characters for me. I might like the story, but the main character themselves I won't like. Ivan is more of a human in this story, rather than an idea in human form as is usually the case with fairy tales. The farmer is also a very curious character. His name is never mentioned, and all the advice he gives Ivan leads Ivan into success, a steady income, and saves his life more than once.     It's true Ivan had to follow the farmer's advice in the first place for it all to work, but the farmer gave very situationally specific advice. It makes me wonder if the farmer was really a farmer or perhaps some entity. He doesn't seem to match the typical idea of fairies, but ...

  The Horned Women. 1892. John D. Batten (Source: Celtic Fairy Tales )     I've been really excited to read this unit! I'll be continuing with Celtic fairy tales next week, and I'm looking forward to it so much. The majority of my family history and ancestors are from Ireland, so I love learning everything I can about the country. Reading through these, I wondered how heavily they were Christianized. I know there's relatively nothing pre-Christianity in regard to mythology, folklore, and fairy tales, so I really wonder how some of these would've red without that influence entirely.     The story that caught my interest and held my attention the most was "The Horned Women." Seeing the title and knowing Irish fairy tales, I had no idea what direction it was going to go in. The direction ended up being witches, to which I replied, "Yeah, that's fair." I wonder why each witch has a different number of horns. The first witch has one, the second tw...

An Embden Goose. (Source: Wikimedia Commons )     For Part B, there was a specific story that stuck out to me for its plot and characters! It was strange one didn't do that in Part A.... "The True Bride" jumped out at me from the readings. It was much longer than most anything I've read in this class, but it held my attention the entire time.  Main Themes I Noticed Swan Princess vibes with She-Who-Spits-Gold being turned into a goose who spends the majority of her time on a lake and trying to communicate with her sons Diligent and kind female is rewarded greatly; Lazy and mean/vain female is punished greatly Wicked stepfamily Fairy godmother, except there's four of them and they're SWSG's brothers she doesn't know about who just so happen to be magical (reminded me of the fairy godmothers from Sleeping Beauty ) Unwaveringly loyal animal companion who's basically the backbone of the story's plot Animal rearing humans Animal-birth slander Questi...

  Red Fox in Snow. Igor Shpilenok. (Source:  One Big Photo )     This week's Part A was definitely a first for me in that no story or plot really jumped out at me. There wasn't anything in particular about plots or characters that stuck out to me. Instead, it was the general world of Native American mythology which grabbed my attention. It's very strange to me, not in any bad way, just in a way that makes me have to step back for a moment to reorient the landscape in my mind to accept the new information from these stories.     They're definitely not bad stories. I found most of them very entertaining. However, past all the nonchalant shape-shifting and human-animal relations, I found the world to be strange in the best way. It's definitely a world I would love to walk into and explore, pick my way through all the stories.     Of this world of Native American mythology and folklore, the magic is the best part. My two favorite instances were in "Sp...

  Arctic Fox. Will Brown. (Source: Flickr ) Story 1     "Papik, Who Killed His Wife's Brother" wasn't a story that particularly grabbed or held my attention until the end. The old woman does turn into a terrifying monster, but what got my imagination going was one of the last lines. "The people of old times thought it an ill thing for men to kill each other."     At first, I just thought along the lines of how it could be commentary today. Have we truly become so desensitized to violence that we've arrived at the point where we don't care? Surely we're not that far gone. But this was written down in 1921. I think humans have always been this way. We have stories about how murder is a very bad thing and how in the "old days there wasn't this much violence!" But I think every generation feels that way, and I also think we have a tendency to glorify "simpler times" as more non-violent, more peaceful, more harmonious. I wonder...

  A Polar Bear in Manitoba Walking Toward the Camera. 9 November 2011. Emma. (Source: Flickr )     There are four stories that caught my eye from this unit, although I was surprised to find I really liked all of them. The way they're formatted is really interesting. A lot of times when stories are translated from oral to written, details or the way it's told gets changed in some way. I really liked these stories because I felt I was listening to someone telling them to me after I had pestered them about it. The stories often ended in, "And this is all I know about it." or in a very similar way. It made me feel like whoever had been originally telling the stories was telling them to a child who had been bugging them. It was amazing how even the narrative style put me in the shoes of someone else. The Story I'd Rewrite     The  story that caught my eye for the assignment in this class, in particular, was "The Coming of Men a Long, Long While Ago." This sto...

Raven. (Source:  Pixabay ) Overall Thoughts     I liked a lot of these stories because they were mainly creation stories, a.k.a. stories that tell how or why something came to be. I'm not super sure if "creation story" is the correct term, but I think it is. Anyway, out of all the creation stories and a couple fable-like ones, the two I liked the best in Part B were because their endings grabbed my attention. Story 1: "Why the Sun Shines More Brightly than the Moon"     The ending caught my eye because I didn't expect it to end the way it did with the two sisters dying. I thought the crystals would have allowed them to rise from and set into the ocean at different times, thus also explaining why the sun and moon seemingly rise from there. Or I thought they might also be saved by being stored in their crystals? I'm not sure, but I didn't expect it to end quite like it had.     I really liked how the sun and moon, or the people they were meant for, wer...

      FINALLY!!     It's finally here! I've been waiting s pecifically for this week where I could read the most anticipated folklore and tales of the semester: Filipino tales!     There were three stories that caught my eye in Part A. Story 1: "The Three Friends: the Monkey, the Dog, and the Carabao" Until this story, I didn't know what a carabao was. I had heard of carabaos' great horns and strength, and, in my mind, I had envisioned something out of a myth. I was so delighted to find it was just a domesticated water buffalo native to the Philippines. And I think it's so cute, too! A Carabao in the Philippines. Mike Gonzalez. 7 August 2005. (Source:  Wikimedia Commons ) This quote stuck out to me the first time I read it, "...for in union there is strength." I didn't know it at the time, but that's pretty much the lesson to be learned for Part A, aside from the few stories that have their own fables at the end. Many of the stories go on...

  Sun Wukong and Xuanzang. 1864. (Source:  Wikimedia Commons )     Sun is the type of friend that says, "If I bake the cookies at four million degrees for five seconds, that's the same as baking them at 350 degrees for 12 minutes."     Xuanzang is the type of friend in the background crying because that's not how any of that works,  and "Sun if you actually try it, I'll stick you so far under your mountain Buddha won't be able to pull you out."     Knowing this, it's understandable why most of the gods and spirits and celestial beings have a bone to pick with Sun. However, there is one being in two stories who has absolute patience with Sun and works to get him mercy from others, the Jade Emporer especially. That being is called Evening Star.     I searched Wikipedia and Google at large, and couldn't really come up with anything on this being. If anything, he (I believe Evening Star has masculine pronouns) is only a footnote in Sun'...

  The Monkey Songokû. circa 1824-1825. (Source:  Wikimedia Commons )     This week, I'm focusing on the mythical Chinese figure, Sun Wu Kung. His name is also sometimes spelled Sun Wukung, Sun Wukong, or all fancy with the accents like  Sūn Wùkōng. Sun means monkey and was given to him as a sort of inside joke from his first master Patriarch Bodhi as he did not previously have a name. Wu Kung means "awakened to emptiness." Although, it can also be taken as being aware of vacuity, i.e. aware of one's lack of thought, intelligence, or emptiness. Either way, his name basically means "Monkey Awakened to his Emptiness."     From here on out, I'll just refer to him as Sun.     To learn more about Sun's names, you can go  here  to a Wikipedia article about it!     My Favorite Part(s)     My favorite parts in Part A's readings were the ones where Sun and Bodhi interacted. So basically every story from "Sun Wu Kung Gets h...

    There were a lot  of stories I liked in this unit. Most of them were really interesting, or concepts within the stories were really interesting. Two of the concepts I liked from Part B were the Ojha (exorcist) and rubies transforming from drops of blood because they hit Siva's head.     Something that really caught my attention in Part B was the story "The Bald Wife." The basic idea of the story isn't new. I'd say there's at least one story like it in every culture.     Premise      There are two females (sometimes girls, sometimes women).       One is good, kind, and selfless, and the other is evil, cruel, and selfish.       The good female makes a hard journey.      On the hard journey her kind, selfless, humble qualities endear her to magical things (plants, animals, spirits, people, etc.).      At the midpoint in her journey, she is given the largest blessing o...

  Good Luck vs. Bad Luck...Or simply just  Luck? Setting out on their journey. 1912. Warwick Goble. (Source:  The Evil Eye of Sani )     "The Evil Eye of Sani" is split into three parts in the unTextbook. The first part introduces the heroes: Sribatsa and his wife Chintamani. Sribatsa is subjected to the Evil Eye when he admits Lakshmi, goddess or Good Luck, was better than Sani, god of bad luck. Sribatsa tries to leave his wife for three years while he's subjected to Sani's Evil Eye, but she refuses and insists their lots are shared as they're married. Part two covers their forced separation and bad luck, and part three covers their reversal of luck as the Evil Eye is turned away after the three years Sani said he would give them.     My favorite parts are part one and the end of part three.     Reading about how luck is personified, or ruled over at least, as two separate entities is interesting because I think it's very much a Western idea...

      "Twenty-Two Goblins" continues to be one of the more fun sections so far this semester. Part A was good, but Part B had more stories and moments I liked.  My favorites were two stories plus the last bit of a third one. Not to mention I got both the riddle and  its reason correct from "The Four Brothers!" Mostly correct, anyway. My reasoning for the last brother being at fault was slightly to the left of the King's reasoning, but I did get the general gist right! Perham W. Nahl. 1917. (Source:  The Four Brothers )     The first story I came across and liked was "The Girl and the Thief." Most of the stories in "The Twenty-Two Goblins" were love stories, but this one really struck my romance streak (not exactly easy). I think perhaps it was the love at first sight trope (which I'm not usually into) combined with the King's answer on why the thief cried  and  laughed. Mixed with the fact the Thief takes his second chance at life t...

     For the fifth week of this course, I've chosen "Twenty-Two Goblins" from the Frametale Stories unit. Its two main characters are King Triple-Victory (from here on out, he'll be referred to as the King) and the goblin. Picture of Vetal hanging by a tree and Vikram in the background. Harshad Dhavale. (Source:  Wikimedia Commons )      Favorite Things How each story is like a snapshot of someone else's life. How each story leaves the protagonist, and sometimes their family, in such a dilemma that only wisdom and a certain way of clever thinking could go about to solve, both of which the King has. I'd like to think that each of these stories holds real people inside them who are forced to repeat the story over and over again until someone, like the King, solves their riddle. I think it would be fun to see how the rest of them get on with their lives in an epilogue-ish sort of thing. I like the use of both English words as names and names that sound li...

Ghost. Artie Navarre. (Source: Pixabay )     My favorite story from the Part B readings was "The Higgldey-Piggledy Palace." The "Fairy Frog" was a distant second because of how Adam was incorporated. Plus, my curiosity was piqued when the frog said "fairy son." What's the difference between a son and a fairy son?     Anyway. The Palace story is about how a spirit helps Sarah get away from becoming part of the pharaoh's harem. As the story goes, when Abraham and Sarah fled to Egypt, the king saw her and was so taken by her beauty he immediately desired her as a wife. Fearing he would imprison or kill Abraham for being her husband, Sarah said Abraham was her brother.     The pharaoh paid for Sarah and separated her from Abraham. They both prayed for her deliverance from the pharaoh. Help came in the form of a ghost!     Every time the pharaoh would make his moves on Sarah, the ghost hit him with a stick. He could not see the ghost and to anyone not ...

      For week 04, I chose to read the Jewish Fairy Tale unit. The Classic units didn't particularly interest me as I've read them before, and since I read the Women Saints unit I wanted to read something different. Of the six stories in Part A, "The Beggar King" was my favorite.     This one interested me the most because of the genie and how his magic operated. From what I've heard online and come across in brief searches, the genie in Middle Eastern folklore is seen as a demon and force of evil.     However, in this story, the genie is sent to teach people who disrespect the Scripture a lesson. This brings up several questions for me. In Jewish folklore, are all genies like this? Is it just this specific genie who is sent to reprimand people? Is it his punishment? Does he do this willingly? Is this the job he chose/signed up for/was created for? Can he only impersonate men? What about women? Is there a separate genie for the women? How do his powers...

 Saint Martha     If S. Juliana had all the chill, and S. Margaret had no chill, where does that leave S. Martha? I think it leaves her somewhere in the middle leaning toward S. Juliana. She is aggressive enough to see a dragon, the Tarasque, eating a man and whip out a crucifix with no hesitation. She's also calm enough to keep it frozen there, while the townspeople kill it.     S. Martha takes one look at this giant amalgamation of a dragon who shoots flaming excrement out of its butt just munching away on another person and has the presence to know she can stun and hold it there while everyone else helps her.     If she wanted to, I believe she could've slain the Tarasque all on her own, but her prayer was only to restrain it. I think she let the townspeople kill it to help heal the grief they had from the Tarasque's reign.     While she didn't hold a conversation with it, she was more of a passive actor in the encounter with the dragon. ...

       My two favorite stories from this unit were the stories of SS. Juliana and Margaret. The stories are pretty similar, but both women are different enough in personality that they take the stories' middles in kind of two different directions.     Both stories involve the women refusing to marry a pagan official and being tortured and jailed for the refusal of both the marriage and of turning back to pagan gods. While in jail a demon (demons in Margaret's case) visit them in an attempt to get them to sin. Unfortunately, they both die in the end by being beheaded.     S. Juliana's story is more of a mental one. Of the two, she's definitely more laid back and chill. She simply grabs the demon by the wrist and speaks to him. They have a conversation about religion, why he tempts people, and where he comes from. It's all a rather civil affair.     For this reason, demons when represented less like a Hollywood jumpscare and more like the ...