Week Fourteen Reading Notes Part B - La Fontaine

Source Story: Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks by W. T. Larned (adapted from La Fontaine), illustrated by John Rae, 1918.

And

The Fables of La Fontaine translated by Elizur Wright (1882).

Web Source.

• "Mice"
• Mouse, cat, rooster - a mousling sees a cat and a rooster and, by appearances, assumes the cat to be friendly and the rooster an enemy. His mother sets him straight.
• Mouse becomes maid - a Brahmin saves an injured mouse and has her turned back into a maid from her previous life. They seek the strongest husband for her and end up choosing a rat
• "More Mice"
• Rats and cat - a cat kills most rats in the area, so the remaining decide they must hang a bell on his collar; of course, no one will volunteer, so nothing comes of it
• Cat and mice - a great mousing cat plays tricks to get the mice out of hiding, but one older mouse is too wise to come out
• "The Tortoise; The Bat"
• Tortoise and birds - a tortoise wants to see the world, so she grabs a stick in her mouth and two birds carry each end of it into the air; she opens her mouth to brag about it and falls to her death
• Bat and weasels - a bat saves herself from two weasels in turn by first claiming to be a bird, then a mouse
• "Frogs"
• Frog and rat - a frog tries to trick a rat into drowning so she can eat him, but they both end up getting caught and eaten by a bird
• Frogs ask for a king - frogs ask for a king and are sent a log; they ask for a king that moves and are sent a bird who kills a bunch of them 
• "The Swallow; The Eagle"
• Swallow and hemp - a wise swallow warns other birds to eat up the seed or pull up the roots of a hemp field before its grown, but they ignore her and get caught in nets when the hemp is done
• Eagle and beetle - an eagle eats a beetle's friend, the rabbit, so the beetle breaks her eggs every year for three years. Finally the gods essentially separate them
• "Man and Beast"
• Bear and gardener - a hermit bear and a lonely old man become friends, but the bear accidentally kills the man when trying to get a fly off his face
• Man and adder - a man catches a snake and plans to kill it for being ungrateful, but the snake gets a cow, and ox, and a tree to testify to how the man is the more ungrateful of the two; the man gets angry and kills the snake
• "The Astrologer; The Dairywoman"
• Astrologer - an astrologer falls into a well because he is looking at the stars rather than what's in front of him (followed by much philosophical pondering)
• Dairywoman - a woman carries a pot of milk on her head to sell at the market, but gets so caught up in fantasizing about what to do with the money that she loses her concentration and drops the pot, breaking it and losing the milk
• "The God Mercury; Hercules"
• Mercury and woodcutter - a woodcutter loses his axe and prays to Mercury, who shows him a gold, then a silver, then a normal axe. The woodcutter says the normal one is his, so Mercury gives him all three for his honesty. Then everyone tries to copy it, but they get hit on the head instead
• Hercules - A man's cart gets stuck in the mud, so he calls on Hercules for help, who gives him instructions on how to help himself
• "Sun and Wind; Belly and Members"
• Sun and Wind - they bet on which can make a traveler take his cloak off first; the wind tries to blow it off with hurricanes and driving rain, but the sun wins out by making the man too warm to wear it
• Belly and members - the limbs decide to mutiny against the belly for not doing any work, but it fails; metaphor for people serving a king

The sun makes the traveler take off his cloak, from Wikimedia Commons

Week Fourteen Reading Notes Part A - La Fontaine

Source Story: Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks by W. T. Larned (adapted from La Fontaine), illustrated by John Rae, 1918.
And
The Fables of La Fontaine translated by Elizur Wright (1882).
Web Source.

• "Foolish Animals"
• Tortoise and the Hare - the classic race
• Donkey in a lion's skin - everyone is scared until a man realizes the truth and leads the "lion" to work in the field
• Frog and Ox - the frog wants to be as big as the ox, but puffs himself too big and explodes
• "More Foolish Animals"
• The dog and his image - drops the meat in the water because of his reflection
• City mouse and country mouse - get together for dinner but realize they prefer their own homes
• Joko the Monkey and Mouser the cat - Mouser burns his paw to get Joko chestnuts from a fire, but doesn't get any himself
• "Foxes"
• Fox and grapes - wants the grapes but cannot reach them
• Fox and stork - fox invites the stork for dinner but serves her soup on a plate so she can't eat it with her beak; she returns the invite but serves food in an urn that she can reach into with her beak, but fox cannot
• "Birds"
• Raven and fox - raven has a morsel that the fox wants; fox flatters him into singing and therefore dropping the food, which the fox steals
• Raven and sheep - raven sees an eagle swoop down and catch prey, so tries it with a sheep, but ends up getting caught in the wool and then put in the shepherd's birdcage
• Heron and fish - heron thinks he is too good to eat the fish he sees, so he ends up with only a snail for dinner
• "Insects"
• Grasshopper and ant - classic story
• Dove and ant - dove saves ant from drowning, so ant saves dove from being killed for a pie
• Lion and gnat - a gnat bites a lion and makes him scratch himself with his claws, but then the gnat gets caught in a spider's web
• "Foolish People"
• Hen and golden eggs - hen lays a golden egg for greedy man, who cuts off her head to see if there's more gold inside
• Acorn and pumpkin - a country bumpkin thinks acorns should grow on the ground and pumpkins in trees, until an acorn falls from a tree onto his head
• Man and his donkey - man, son, and donkey going to the market try to please everyone but finally decide to do what they think is best
• "Foxes and Wolves"
• Fox, wolf, and well - a fox sees the reflection of the moon in a well and thinks it's cheese, so he goes down in a bucket before realizing his error; he tricks a wolf into taking the bucket on the other side of the pulley to pull him up
• Fox, wolf, and horse - a fox and wolf are sizing up a horse and ask its name, so it tells them to read the name on the bottom of its horseshoe - it ends up kicking four teeth out of the wolf's mouth
• "Horses"
• Horse and revenge - horse wants revenge on stag for winning a race, so horse gets human's help to hunt the stag; inevitably, horse ends up stuck as human's servant forever
• Horse and wolf - a wolf pretends to be a doctor wanting to help a horse, but gets kicked in the mouth instead
• "Dogs"
• Dog and wolf - a wolf sees how well-fed a dog is and wants in on the action, until he realizes it comes at the cost of his liberty
• Donkey and dog - a dog wants food from the basket on a donkey's back, but the donkey will not let him, so when a wolf comes to attack the donkey, the dog doesn't help him either
• "Cats"
• Cat becomes woman - man loves his cat so much that she turns into a human and he marries her, but she still wants to chase mice all the time
• Cat, eagle, and sow - the three share a tree for raising their young, but the cat convinces the other two that each is trying to kill the other, so they all die of hunger and the cat gets the tree to herself

Image of a "wolf in sheep's clothing" from Max Pixel

Week Thirteen Story: Diary of a Gossip

April 2nd:

Dear Diary,

Today my friend, Anna, and I were talking about Sarah Madden's son, Jack, and his very ugly hump. Something really must be done about it, you know; it is so very uncomely, and the little brat has a horrid personality to boot. Still, if it weren't for that hideous hump protruding from his back like a mountain, he could perhaps be relatively handsome, and as you know, he stands to inherit quite a good-sized fortune. 

So, Anna and I were thinking, if we could just figure out a way to rid him of his hunchback, perhaps he would be a suitable match for Anna's daughter, Lily. Of course, his arrogance and snobbishness aren't likely to go away with the hump, but if he could at least look halfway decent, Lily (and, by proxy, Anna) would stand to gain a great deal through the union. 

Anyway, I heard a rumor from Philippa, who told me she heard it from Emmaline, who heard from a fishmonger in the market that there was a man -- what was his name? Lester? Lustore? Something like that, anyway -- who had a hump just like that Jack's, but he somehow got rid of it! Tomorrow, Anna and I are fixing to seek him out in Carragh to see if we can find out how he managed it!

April 3rd:

Dear Diary,

We found him! His name is Lusmore -- what an odd thing to be called! -- and the fairies took his hump away! He told me all: he found himself drowning in misery at his own ugliness next to a marsh at night, and he heard the fairies singing "Monday, Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday" over and over again, so he just piped right in with "Wednesday," and they were so grateful to him for adding to their song that they just magicked his hump right off! He's a right handsome fellow now, diary; you couldn't tell at all that he used to be such a monster. Hopefully it'll be just the same for Jack! 

Tonight, Anna and I are going to take Jack to that marsh and see if he can lose that hump, provided he'll promise that, if he becomes handsome, he'll marry Lily. I'm sure he'll agree, but we'll need to get it in writing. Lily isn't much to look at herself, and if he really does come out as handsome as that Lusmore fellow, he might just decide to go after some gorgeous noblewoman or other instead.

Wish us luck!

April 4th:

Dear Diary,

Oh dear. It's all gone wrong. We took that horrid little Jack Madden to the marsh after he signed the contract we wrote up, but he messed the whole thing up! We told him to add "Wednesday, Thursday" to the fairy song because if they rewarded Lusmore for adding only one day, surely Jack would be even better rewarded for adding two, right? Well, apparently not. The fairies, it seems, sucked Jack down into their marsh and went on and on about how he hadn't respected their music, and he added his voice at the wrong time, and Lusmore had been so kind and intelligent, but Jack was only rude and arrogant (not that I disagree, but still! ungrateful little things!). So they took the hump that they'd kept from Lusmore's back (why anyone would keep such a thing is beyond me!) and magicked it onto Jack, so now he has two humps. 

The weight of the humps together is such that he seems fixing to die. Sarah is, of course, livid, but we were just trying to help. Ah, well. I hear there's a rich cripple over in Carragh, so maybe he'll have low enough standards to wed poor Lily.

I shall let you know when I find out more, diary!

Drawing of a hunchback from Wikimedia Commons

*Author's Note:

This story is based on "The Legend of Knockgrafton," in which a kind-hearted, intelligent man named Lusmore adds to the song of the fairies, making them so happy that they remove his hunchback and make him incredibly handsome. When word spreads, a gossip comes to Lusmore asking how he got rid of his hump, because her friend's son, who is not a very nice person, wants to get rid of his as well. Lusmore openly shares with her how it happened, but when Jack Madden, the other hunchback, goes to the fairies, he doesn't show the  appreciation and respect for their music that Lusmore did, so they put Lusmore's hump on his back, and the weight soon kills him. I wanted to write this story from the gossip's perspective, and emphasize the way that, other than Lusmore, everyone in the story looks only at the outward appearance, and not at the heart. The fairies rewarded Lusmore because he was respectful and kind, even though everyone else made fun of him and spread rumors about him. Jack Madden, though he had the same physical deformity as Lusmore, did not have a kind heart, so he was not rewarded. 

Bibliography: More Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs, with illustrations by John D. Batten (1895). Web source.

Week Thirteen Reading Notes Part B - More Celtic Tales

Source Story: More Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs, with illustrations by John D. Batten (1895). Web source.

• "The Farmer of Liddesdale"
• A farmer whose family has all died and whose ploughman has deserted him hires a traveling ploughman as a last resort. The man agrees to take one burden-withe of corn in return for the work, and though he does the work differently than everyone else, he does a good job. When the harvest is in, he brings an enormous burden-withe and takes almost all the corn. The farmer makes an appeal to higher powers, and the mysterious ploughman disappears into clouds, leaving all the corn behind.
• "The Legend of Knockgrafton"
• A man named Lusmore with a hump on his back is looked down upon by everyone, and one night he hears fairies singing the words "Monday, Tuesday" over and over again. He adds in "Wednesday" to their song, and they are so amazed by his musical genius that they fix his hump and make him new clothes. Everyone barely believes it's the same man.
• "The Legend of Knockgrafton (cont.)"
• A woman comes to ask Lusmore how he got rid of his hump, so that she can help her friend's son, named Jack Madden, get rid of his. They take the son and tell him to do the same as Lusmore. He adds "Wednesday, Thursday" to the song, but he doesn't respect the fairies' music and doesn't pay attention to the rhythm/timing, so the fairies, angered, take Lusmore's old lump and put it on Jack Madden. He dies soon afterwards.
• "Elidore"
• A boy is tired of getting beaten for his laziness in the monastery, so he goes into the woods and finds some miniature men, who take him to their own land through a secret tunnel. He stays there happily for awhile, splitting his time between his mother and the land of the little people. His mother convinces him to try stealing a yellow ball from the little people, because she thinks it must be gold. He fails to do this, and because of his attempt he is never able to return to that land again.
• "How Cormac Mac Art Went to Faery"
• King Cormac trades his family for a fairy branch that has the power to make people happy. Later, he follows the direction that the fairy youth took his family, and ends up seeing a number of strange sights which turn out to have moral lessons. He meets a couple who turn out to be the fairy king (who was also the fairy youth from earlier) and queen, and they return his family to him, along with several magical gifts.
• "The Ridere of Riddles"
• A king's second wife attempts to murder his son from his first wife with poison, but the new wife's son tells his step-brother and they run away together, taking the poison with them. In a series of events, the poison ends up killing a number of people and animals, and the brothers take their story to the Knight of Riddles in the form of a riddle, hoping to win his daughter's hand in marriage.
• "The Ridere of Riddles (cont.)"
• The princess's handmaidens go to the younger brother to convince him to tell them the answer, but he "takes their plaids" and doesn't tell them. The princess comes to the older brother, who takes her plaid and tells her. Then the king "guesses" the answer to the riddle, but the older brother shows that he knows the king cheated, so he gets to marry the princess, and the younger brother goes home and becomes king. Years later, they meet again and wrestle for awhile before recognizing each other, then the younger brother discovers he has twelve sons.

Image of a plaid tablecloth from piqsels

Week Thirteen Reading Notes Part A - More Celtic Tales

Source Story: More Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs, with illustrations by John D. Batten (1895). Web source.

• "The Fate of the Children of Lir"
• King Lir is angry because the council elects King Dearg to be the head king instead of him, so Dearg offers him the choice of three beautiful sisters for a wife as a peace offering. Lir marries the eldes, Ove, and they have four beautiful children before Ove dies. At her death, Dearg gives Lir Ove's sister, Oifa, who becomes jealous of the children and turns them into swans, banishing them to the waves. Lir realizes Oifa has done wrong by his children.
• "The Fate of the Children of Lir (cont.)"
• King Lir discovers that the children are now swans, and they tell him in their human voices that his wife has cursed them thusly until a certain man from the north marries a certain woman from the south. Lir tells Dearg, who turns Oifa into an air-demon forever. The children sing for the people for a long time, then fly away. They get separated by a storm, but they find each other again afterwards.
• "The Fate of the Children of Lir (end)"
• The swans fly back to their father's land after a long while, only to find it deserted completely. Saint Patrick finds them and takes them in, and connects them to each other with chains. The man and woman whose wedding is to mark the end of the curse are finally set to wed, and they try to get the swans from Saint Patrick, but when they try to take them, the swans turn back into the children of Lir, only now they are extremely old. Patrick baptises them and then they die.
• "The Vision of MacConglinney"
• King Cathal was a good king, but then a monster came to live in his belly that made him eat the land out of house and home. A scholar named MacConglinney decides to help, and ends up tying the king up and eating lots of food in front of him, then telling him about a vision he had about a house made of food
• "The Vision of MacConglinney (cont.)"
• MacConglinney tells more of his vision, where he sails on a food boat across a milk pond and meets a Wizard Doctor. Then he holds food in front of King Cathal, and the monster in Cathal's stomach comes up through his mouth, then jumps out to get the food. The monster disappears and the king is cured, and MacConglinney gets a rich reward.
• "Dream of Owen O'Mulready"
• Owen O'Mulready has never had a dream, but really wants to. He follows his master's instructions to have one, but it's a nightmare. He never wants to dream again.
• "The Story of the McAndrew Family"
• A rich man has seven stupid sons, and when he gives them all some cows, they get tricked into selling them for almost nothing, then waste the little bit they do get. When the father dies, the oldest son goes into town to waste his inheritance and gets tricked into buying a "mare's egg," which is really a painted barrel.
• "The Story of the McAndrew Family (cont.)"
• The brothers roll the "mare's egg" down a hill, and it frightens a rabbit out of hiding, which they assume is the foal but cannot catch. By and by, their neighbors trick them out of all their land, fields, and house, and they become homeless beggars.

Image of a swan from Wikipedia

Story Lab Week Twelve

For this week's story lab, I spent some time browsing through Jon Winokur's "Advice to Writers" website, looking for some of the best advice to share here. I decided to select my pieces of advice from the "Daily Quotes" section of the website, which are from a multitude of different people and cover a broad range of topics. So, here is a list of the five best pieces of advice I found, according to me:

1. "There's No Ideal Literary Style" (advice from Iris Murdoch) - This advice is good because it reminds us that even though, as Murdoch says, there is "good and bad writing," there is no perfect style that we must conform to. Writing is an art form and is therefore highly individualized, and the style we choose should be one which complements the content well.
   
2. "We Must Not Be Defeated" (advice from Maya Angelou) - Maya Angelou reminds us that we will certainly face many defeats, and that perhaps we should face many defeats, because they will help us to grow and improve. But, we must not allow ourselves to be defeated. Even when we fail, the most important thing is to get ourselves back up again and keep going.
   
3. "The Characters Arrive First" (advice from William Gibson) - According to Gibson, when he writes, it is the characters who first show up in his imagination and make themselves known, and then he must figure out where they are, what they are doing, etc. This, for me, lines up well with something my Fiction Writing professor really drove home in her class last year: what we strive for as literary authors is to create work that is driven by the characters - the people, who we can relate to and feel through and live through - rather than the plot. For me, interesting, fully formed, and multi-faceted characters are integral to a good read, so I like the idea of starting with them and then just trying to figure out everything else in relation to them.
   
4. "Keep Dialogue in Character" (advice from Paddy Chayefsky) - This is a great piece of advice, in my opinion, because even though it seems so obvious, I feel like I see a lot of people who struggle with this one, and I know dialogue isn't my own strong suit, either. Sometimes when we write, I think there's a tendency to think, "I know I need to include all of this information in their speech," and then forget to make sure we get that information across in a way that reflects the character well. It's important to remember to keep you characters in character, especially when they're speaking!
   
5. "Writing Is Not A Serious Business" (advice from Ray Bradbury) - I'm a big Bradbury fan, so I of course gravitated to his quote. He talks about how writing should be fun, a celebration, enjoyable, rather than serious or life-sucking. This particularly meaningful considering the seriousness of the content he is known for!

Image of a writer from pixabay

Week Twelve Reading Notes Part A - Celtic Tales

Source Story: Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs, with illustrations by John D. Batten (1892). Web Source.

• "Connla and the Fairy Maiden"
• A prince, named Connla, sees a fairy maiden who invites him to come and live with her in a land without sin or death. He is the only one who can see her, but his father hears her voice and gets his Druid to cast a spell and get rid of her. Before she disappear, she throws an apple to Connla, who eats only that for a month because it replenishes when he eats it. He falls in love with her during this time, but when she reappears his father again tries to call for his Druid to dispatch her. But before the Druid comes, Connla runs away with her on a glass canoe off to sea.
• "The Field of Boliauns"
• A man named Tom Fitzpatrick meets a leprechaun working on a holiday. He follows the leprechaun for awhile, and then begins to threaten the leprechaun, wanting to know where he's hidden his gold. He grabs the leprechaun, spilling his beer, and makes the leprechaun take him to the hiding place, which is under a boliaun in a field full of boliauns. He doesn't have a shovel with him, so he ties his red garter to the boliaun and makes the leprechaun swear not to move it, then goes home to get his shovel. When he returns, the leprechaun is gone and so is the garter, so he never gets his gold.
• "The Horned Women"
• A rich woman's house is taken over by weaving witches with horns on their heads. They tell her to make them a cake while they weave, so she goes outside to get some water. The Spirit of the Well tells her how to get rid of the witches, and once they leave, how to perform a series of rituals to keep them from coming back. She follows the instructions, and when the witches return, they cannot get back into her house, so they leave.
• "The Shepherd of Myddvai"
• A shepherd sees three beautiful maidens come out of a lake, and through trial and error and a lot of bread, he convinces one of them to marry him. She tells him she will be his wife, but if he strikes her three times without cause she will leave him. Twice he taps her on the shoulder and she counts it, and finally, when she bursts out laughing at a funeral, he grabs her shoulder roughly, so she leaves him and takes all the animals she brought with her back to the lake. She returns one final time later to give her sons gifts when they become men.
• "The Sprightly Tailor"
• A laird named Macdonald tells a sprightly tailor that he'll pay him handsomely if the tailor will sew him some trews at night in a haunted church. The tailor agrees and goes to sew them that night. A monster starts to rise out of the ground, and keeps asking the tailor if he sees the monster's great head/neck/arms/etc. The tailor just responds "I see that, but I'll sew this!" each time, and finishes the trews just as the monster fully emerges. The monster chases him, but the tailor is nimble and escapes, then receives a rich reward from the laird.
• "Munachar and Manachar"
• Munachar and Manachar went to gather raspberries, but Manachar eats all the raspberries that Munachar picks, so Munachar decides to hang him. He goes looking for a rod, who says he must first find an axe, who says he must first find a flag, and so on until he gets to a miller who tells him to bring a sieve filled with water. A crow cries "daub, daub," so Munachar daubs clay in the sieve so the water doesn't run out. After going through all the lengthy process to get the supplies to hang Manachar, he returns to find that Manachar has burst from eating all the raspberries, and is already dead.
• "Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree"
• An evil queen is mad because a fish says her daughter is prettier than her, so she tries to kill her daughter. She makes several attempts to murder the daughter, and is successful one time, but each time she thinks the daughter is dead, she is either mistaken, or the daughter comes back to life. So when she returns to the fish, expecting to be considered the prettiest, the fish always tells her that her daughter is prettier. In the end, the daughter's sister-wife helps trick the queen into killing herself. The daughter and her sister-wife live happily ever after with their shared husband, who is a rich prince.

Image of the fish who kept calling the queen ugly, probably.
(Image of a trout from Flickr)

Famous Last Words: A Difficult Week

Hello again! This is only my second time doing "Famous Last Words," so I'll reiterate the basic idea: the following will be a reflection on how my week has gone, along with what I anticipate for the upcoming week.

This week was a difficult one for me in a lot of ways. My great-grandfather was placed on hospice care following a medical emergency, and he unfortunately passed away on Friday night. Emotionally, of course, it's been difficult for me -- not only managing the grief, but also the fact that I live so far from my family, so I was unable to be with them during this difficult time. I am hoping to be able to go home for the funeral this upcoming week, but I do have an exam on the same day and at the same time, so I am hoping my professor will allow me to take it early or make it up later. The drive home is about twelve hours, so it will be a fairly stressful week, as I'll need to drive home Wednesday and drive back to Oklahoma either Friday or Saturday, in addition to two exams, at least one quiz, and a paper, among other things.

Still, despite the sadness of losing my grandfather and the stress of everything else, I do feel a sense of peace. Like me, my grandfather was a Christian, and I am confident that he is now reunited with Jesus, with my great grandmother, and with other loved ones. In fact, over the last few weeks/months, he told both my grandmother and my aunt that he felt ready to go whenever God called him, despite then being in excellent health. Since his wife died several years ago, he actually had gotten a girlfriend at his retirement community, who was a wonderful woman. She had dementia, and she had been relying on his care for some time. In completely unrelated circumstances, she passed away the day he went to the hospital, about a week before he did. I believe that was a blessing from God, calling them home together, so that neither had to deal with the grief of losing the other.

Anyways, I know this post was a bit of a downer, but I just wanted to take a moment and reflect on how grateful I am for the people I've been blessed to have in my life. I'll miss my grandfather dearly, but my life is better for having had him in it.

Sunrise over Wainui Beach, from pxhere

Week Eleven Reading Notes Part A - Hiawatha

Source Story: The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1855). Web Source.

• "The Four Winds"
• After killing the great bear Mishe-Mokwa, Mudjekeewis' name is changed to Kabeyun and he becomes the West Wind. He gives the other three winds to his children - the East Wind is his son, Wabun. Wabun brings the sunrise and makes things beautiful but is lonely, until he finds a beautiful but lonely human maiden. He romances her with his beauty and then turns her into the Star of Morning, and now they can be seen walking together in the heavens.
• "The Four Winds (cont.)"
• The North Wind is given to his strong and fierce son, Kabibonokka, who brings the snow and the freezing of the lakes and forces everyone to migrate southward. But a diver (duck) remains with fish he has caught and logs for a fire, and despite Kabibonokka's best efforts to freeze him, and then to beat him in wrestling, Kabibonokka cannot defeat him. The South Wind is given to Shawondasee, who is fat and lazy and careless, and who brings about summer and crops and birds. Shawondasee falls in love with a beautiful maiden dressed in green and with yellow hair, but is too lazy to woo her. One day her hair is white like snowflakes, and he thinks his Northern brother has stolen her from him, so he sighs his sadness across the plains, and the maiden is blown away, because she was a dandelion all along.
• "Hiawatha's Childhood"
• A woman named Nokomis falls from the moon and gives birth to a daughter, whom she warns to be wary of the West Wind. The daughter does not listen and lets the West Wind seduce her, but he abandons her when she gives birth to their son, Hiawatha. She dies of heartache, so Hiawatha is raised by Nokomis, his grandmother, who teaches him everything. He learns how to talk to birds and animals, and Iagoo makes him a bow, with which he kills a red deer buck on his first try.
• "Hiawatha and Mudjekeewis"
• As an adult, Hiawatha learns of how his mother died, and decides to confront his father. He goes to the land of the West Wind, and he and his father sit and talk for many days. Hiawatha pretends to be happy to see him only to ask what his weakness is. His father says the only thing that can harm him is a specific black rock, and Hiawatha tells his father the only that can hurt him is the bulrush. Then Hiawatha tells his father that it was his fault that Hiawatha's mother died, and his father admits it.
• "Hiawatha and Mudjekeewis (cont.)"
• Hiawatha and Mudjekeewis fight violently, but reach a stalemate because Mudjekeewis is immortal. So Mudjekeewis admits that he was only testing Hiawatha's courage, and when Hiawatha is old and ready to die, he will instead become the North-West Wind. On the way home, Hiawatha stops to buy arrows and meets a beautiful but enigmatic maiden, named Minnehaha or Laughing Water, about whom he does not tell Nokomis.
• "Hiawatha's Fasting"
• Hiawatha goes into the woods to fast and pray for the "profit of the people." Mondamin, a friend of man dressed in green and yellow and sent by the Master of Life, shows up after Hiawatha has been fasting for several days and wrestles with him. They wrestle for three nights in a row, and then Mondamin announces that the Master of Life will give Hiawatha victory, and Hiawatha will get what he prayed for.
• "Hiawatha's Fasting (cont.)"
• Mondamin tells Hiawatha he will come and wrestle him once more, and after Hiawatha wins he must strip Mondamin of his green and yellow clothes, bury him, and watch over his grave until he comes up again and reaches for the sun. Hiawatha, though he has been fasting for a week and has refused Nokomis's food, wins the fight and follows Mondamin's instructions. Mondamin comes back as a corn plant (dressed in green and yellow) to serve as food for the people and fulfill Hiawatha's prayers.
• "Hiawatha's Friends"
• Hiawatha had two friends: Chibiabos, who was the greatest musician of all time, and Kwasind, who was the strongest man. When Kwasind was young everyone called him lazy - his mother asked for his help with the nets but he was too strong and broke them all. His father asked for help with hunting, but Kwasind broke the bows. Still, Kwasind cleared the path of fallen trees for his father, and dammed the river and caught the King of Beavers for the other young men.
• "Hiawatha's Sailing"
• Hiawatha asks all the trees and the hedgehog for parts of themselves to help him build a magical canoe. They agree, albeit unhappily. Then Kwasind clears the river of all logs and sandbars, and Hiawatha can sail it without paddles because of his magical canoe.
• "Hiawatha's Fishing"
• Hiawatha sets out to kill the King Sturgeon, but the sturgeon keeps sending other fish to grab his line and try to pull Hiawatha down. Finally, after the other fish have failed, the sturgeon swallows Hiawatha, the canoe, and the squirrel friend who is along for the ride, in one bite. Hiawatha, inside the sturgeon, kills it by attacking its heart, then the squirrel and some seagulls help him get out of the now-beached and dead fish. He instructs Nokomis to work at night turning the fish into oil for winter so the seagulls can eat it during the day as thanks.

"Westward, Westward, Hiawatha" painting by M. L. Kirk from Wikimedia Commons

Week Ten Reading Notes Part A - "Eskimo"

Source Story: "Eskimo Folktales" by Knud Rasmussen with illustrations by native Eskimo artists (1921).

• "The Coming of Men"
• The earth was created by falling from the sky, and then men crawled up out of the earth as little children. Eventually a man and a woman were there, and man grew to be many on the earth, and man got dogs and did not know how to die. There was no light or day, other than the light in man's homes. The earth was too crowded, so a great flood came and drowned many. Then two old women talked about whether it was better to have death and light, or no light and no death. The former was chosen, and light came about because, when man dies, he becomes a star in the sky.
• "Nukúnguasik, who Escaped from the Tupilak"
• Nukúnguasik lived among a set of many brothers who would bring him food since he had no wife. One day he discovered one of them creating a Tupilak (a magical creature created with the intent to harm someone) and telling it to kill Nukúnguasik. Nukúnguasik startles the brother to death, then returns home. He goes out with the other brothers looking for the dead man, and leads them to him, where the Tupilak is now eating his body. They bury him and go on with their lives.
• "The Woman Who Had a Bear as a Foster-Son"
• An old woman is taken care of by her village, and one day they give her the cub of a bear they killed. She raises it as her son and it grows up well-loved by the whole village. When it is older, it begins hunting with the men of the village to find food, but the men from a faraway village want to kill it, despite the old lady making a collar to mark it as friendly. One day the bear kills a man in self-defense, so the old woman tells it that it must leave her, so that nobody will be able to kill it. They both weep, and the woman marks the bear with oil before he goes. From then on, it was said that sometimes people would see a bear as big as an iceberg, marked with oil.
• "Qalagánguasê, Who Passed to the Land of Ghosts"
• A boy's whole family dies and leaves him a paralyzed orphan. He begins to see ghosts, and one day he sees several ghosts, including his sister. They tell him that if he doesn't tell anyone about them, he will stop being paralyzed, but as soon as he starts to feel stronger, he tells everyone and is immediately paralyzed again. The village ties him up and leaves to go to a singing contest, and the ghosts of his parents show up to take him to become a ghost with them. He goes willingly and becomes a woman ghost.
• "Isigâligârssik"
• A bad wizard steals Isigâligârssik's wife, so Isigâligârssik challenges him. The wizard stabs him, but Isigâligârssik goes home and puts on his childhood dress, which has healing powers and heals him. Then he takes a tiny bow and arrow and has a shootout with the wizard, who he kills. He gains his wife back and they live happily ever after.
• "The Insects that Wooed a Wifeless Man"
• A wifeless man is detested by all the women because he always sleeps in too late to go hunting. One day he goes out in the evening anyway, and helps a Noseless One whose kayak was overturned. After that, he does not struggle with his old sleepiness and becomes the best hunter around, and he gets the best wife. But she nags him until he tells her what happened, and then his sleepiness returns. His wife runs away and he chases her, and she sends a bunch of insects to try and seduce him. When this doesn't work, he crawls into the cave she is hiding in and she combs his hair and tells him to sleep until spring. When he wakes up, she's gone and so is the winter, and his kayak has rotted from old age.
• "Makíte"
• A man named Makíte is bad at hunting and hears that his wife is going to leave him, so he runs away to live along in the mountains. He meets a lone-dweller there who has floating lights in his house, and he threatens to kill the lone-dweller if he doesn't say where he got them. He tells Makíte that they are on top of a faraway hill. They get into a fight and Makíte kills the man, then goes on and meets some dwarves. He witnesses a fight between the dwarves and the inland-dwellers, who fight by sending waves of water towards each other. The dwarves win, and Makíte builds a house with them, and gets some of the floating lights from the hill, and lives there forever.
• "Atungait, Who Went A-Wandering"
• A man named Atungait leaves his wife to find a strong woman to go on a trip with. He finds one, and they travel around on his sledge, meeting several strange groups of people. They meet one group who is all lame, and he steals their copper plaything. They use magic to send an avalanche of stones after him, but his strong woman ties leather to the back of their sledge which stops the stones. After this, he tells the woman to stay there while he flies to see which way home is. When he arrives home, he sees his wife with another man. She says she hasn't kissed anyone, so he kills her, but the man she was with admits to kissing her, so he lets the man live. Then he marries the strong woman.
• "The Giant Dog"
• A man had a giant dog, who could catch whales and narwhals and on whom he and his wife could ride. He gave the dog an amulet that made it hard for the dog to die. After the dog killed and ate someone in their village, the man had to move somewhere else with the dog. A stranger came with three dogs as big as bears to kill it, but the dog killed all of them, and the dog also often killed inland-dwellers and brought their legs back to his master, which is why inland-dwellers are so afraid of dogs.
  

Image of a dog sled from Wikimedia Commons

Week Nine Reading Notes Part B - West Africa

Source Story: "West African Folktales" by William H. Barker and Cecilia Sinclair, with drawings by Cecilia Sinclair (1917).

• "The Moon and Stars"
• Anansi and his son Kweku Tsin are captured by a dragon one day while they're out hunting. The dragon takes them back to his castle where they are guarded (along with many others) by a great white rooster. Kweku devises a plan to distract the rooster and make a ladder to climb up into the heavens, using a bag of bones and a magical fiddle to keep the dragon at bay as they climb. The gods make Kweku into the sun, Anansi into the moon, and all the others into the stars.
• "How the Tortoise Got His Shell"
• The gods decide to throw a party, so they send Klo (the tortoise) to get some wine from the chicken. Klo is very fast, and he gets there quickly. The chicken and the tortoise fight for the right to the wine and the palms that produce it. Klo wins, but there is too much wine for him to carry in his pot, so he drink all the leftover wine, then slings the pot onto his back along with all the trees. Being drunk, he is too slow getting back to the party and finds himself locked out in the rain for two months, during which time he dies under the weight of the pot. When they find his body, the gods are able to bring him back to life, but the pot had so melded to his body that it became part of him, and that's how tortoise got his shell.
• "The Hunter and the Tortoise"
• A hunter finds a singing tortoise in the woods, and takes her home to sing to him every day. She agrees with the condition that she will only sing to him, and not to others. But of course he tells everyone about it, and tells them they can kill him if it turns out that he's lying. They agree that, if he is telling the truth, he may punish them however he sees fit for disbelieving them. But the tortoise doesn't sing in front of them, because of the agreement they made. After they kill the hunter, the tortoise finally speaks, and explains that the man brought it on himself.
• "The Leopard and the Ram"
• A leopard and a ram mistakenly choose the same place to build their house, so they decide to live together. When Leopard realizes that Ram brings home as much meat from hunting as he does, he asks his son to find out how Ram kills animals. Leopard's son and Ram's son reveal to each other how their fathers hunt, and Leopard gets the information from his son that Ram backs up a bit, then rams forward with his head to kill an animal. One day, the rain makes the floor very wet, and Ram slips backwards. Thinking Ram is about to kill him, Leopard takes his son and flees into the woods, despite Ram's calling out to him. This is why rams are domestic (they continue living in the house) while leopards are wild (they flee into the forest).
• "King Chameleon and the Animals"
• The animals decide they need a king, but because they cannot agree on one, they decide to have a race to determine their ruler. The first one to sit in a certain stool should be the king. Hare, the fastest, makes it to the stool first, but finds that Chameleon has hidden himself on Hare's tail and jumped off at the last second to steal the seat. The other animals honor their agreement to make him king, but they are all unhappy with the outcome, so they leave Chameleon lonely forever, with no subjects to rule.
• "Elephant and Wren"
• The king tells all his subjects that anyone who can cut down a certain large tree with only a wooden axe will receive an elephant as a reward. Spider takes the challenge, but secretly uses a steel axe instead. However, he doesn't want to share the elephant with his family, so he ties it to a tree while he tries to catch a wren to give them to eat while he hides the elephant in the woods to eat by himself later. He fails at catching the wren, and the elephant escapes.
• "The Ungrateful Man"
• A hunter comes across a pit with a serpent, a rat, a leopard, and a man all trapped in it. He helps them all out, despite thinking that the man was the only one he should have saved. The serpent repays him with a powerful antivenom for snake bites (which must be mixed with the blood of a traitor), the leopard supplies him with meat for many weeks, and the rat brings him a bundle of riches. The man from the pit, however, only becomes envious of the hunter and mooches off of him until he finds an opportunity to do him wrong. He wrongly accuses the hunter of stealing from the king, and the hunter is sentenced to death. Before his execution, however, the hunter is able to save the king's son from death by a snakebite using his antivenom mixed with the blood of the ungrateful man, who they kill for being a traitor. The hunter is set free and given many riches.
• "Why Tigers Never Attack Men Unless They are Provoked"
• A tiger and a hunter befriend each other and take turns staying at each other's homes. The hunter's father dies, so the tiger and his cub come to visit to console their friend. As they are leaving, some of the hunter's friends shoot the tiger, who fortunately does not die, but worries that his friend has betrayed him. The tiger pretends to be dead to see what the hunter will do. The hunter is deeply grieves and stays by the tiger's side all night, crying, to protect the body. The tiger reveals that he isn't really dead and explains what happened, then promises to never attack a man unless the man provokes him first.
• "How Mushrooms First Grew"
• A pair of brothers racks up a lot of debt, but they decide to try to pay it off honestly by farming. A bird eats all their seed, so the debt transfers to the bird. The bird tries to lay eggs to sell, but a silk tree's branch smashes them, so the debt goes to the tree. The tree tries to make silk to sell, but an elephant takes down all the pods, so the debt goes to the elephant. A hunter kills the elephant, so the debt goes to him. A tree stump trips the hunter and breaks his leg, so the debt goes to the stump. A colony of white ants (termites) eats through the stump, so the debt goes to them. They all pool their money to buy linen thread, which they weave into pieces of cloth to sell to pay off the debt. They sometimes lay this cloth out on their anthills, and people call it "mushrooms."
• "Farmer Mybrow and the Fairies"
• Farmer Mybrow sets out to make a field next to the home of some fairies. The fairies help with whatever task he begins (clearing the field, planting, etc.). He keeps the field and the fairies a secret from everyone, even his wife. But eventually his wife finds out the location and goes there to gather some firewood, after promising her husband she won't answer any questions she hears there. She pulls an unripe ear of corn from a stalk, and the fairies ask what she is doing. Forgetting her promise, she tells them she is pulling down an ear of corn. The fairies immediately help her with her task, pulling down all the crops before they are ripe and ruining the field.

Image of a tortoise from Public Domain Pictures

Week Nine Reading Notes Part A - West Africa

Source Story: "West African Folktales" by William H. Barker and Cecilia Sinclair, with drawings by Cecilia Sinclair (1917).

• "How We Got the Name: 'Spider Tales'"
• Spider was jealous of Nyankupon for being the subject of all the folk stories, so he asked for all the stories from then on to be called Anansi stories, after him. Nyankupon agrees on the condition that Spider bring him a jar full of bees, a boa constrictor, and a tiger. Spider uses his cunning to trick all the above creatures and brings them to Nyankupon, so after that the old stories were called Anansi (Spider) Tales.
• "How Wisdom Became the Property of the Human Race"
• Father Anansi, who possesses all the wisdom in the world, becomes angry with some men and decides to punish humanity by reclaiming all the wisdom he has shared and placing it in a pot, then hiding the pot on top of a tree. He hangs the pot from his neck, and therefore he cannot climb the tree to hide it there. His son, who has been watching, suggests that he carry the pot on his back. Realizing that his son has more wisdom than he, Anansi throws the pot down, breaking it and releasing all the wisdom across the world to humans.
• "Anansi and Nothing"
• Anansi and his rich neighbor, named Nothing, go to town to find some wives. On the way, Anansi trades clothes with Nothing so that he appears rich while Nothing appears poor, so Anansi gets many wives and Nothing gets only one. When they get home, Anansi's wives realize how poor he is and leave him for Nothing. Anansi tricks Nothing into a deathtrap, killing him. Nothing's first wife is heartbroken and makes food to share with all the children of the land so that they will cry with her, which is why children are often said to be "crying for Nothing."
• "Thunder and Anansi"
• Anansi and his family have no food and are starving, so Anansi goes in search of some coconuts, only to find an underwater cottage where Thunder lives, who gives him a magic pot that provides food out of nothing. Afraid that the pot's magic will run out, Anansi keeps it from his family, allowing them to starve while he fattens himself up. His son, however, shapeshifts into a fly and spies on him, then takes the pot to share with his family. Anansi's wife, in anger, accidentally destroys the pot while cooking a meal to share with all the hungry people in town. Angry, Anansi goes back to Thunder and tells him the tale, whereupon Thunder gives Anansi a magical stick that beats him to a pulp. Anansi is left feeling remorseful for being so foolish.
• "Why the Lizard Moves His Head Up and Down"
• A king offers his three daughters as wives to any man who can discover their names, which Anansi does through trickery. He tells the name to his friend Lizard, who agrees to act as his herald when he meets with the king. However, since Lizard is the one who actually says the names, the king gives him the princesses instead of Anansi. Anansi frames Lizard for the crime of killing the king's rooster, and pours boiling water into his mouth to make him unable to speak. When the king's men find him, he can only bob his head up and down and is unable to defend himself, so the princesses are taken from him and given to Anansi, and since then all lizards bob their heads up and down.
• "Tit for Tat"
• During a terrible famine, Anansi's oldest son discovers a good hunting place where he finds meat to sell in the village. Greedy, Anansi uses trickery to track his son to his hunting place, then drives him off in order to kill all the animals himself and sell them to become rich. His son returns the trickery, though, by creating a fake god to scare Anansi into leaving behind all the meat, which his son then takes to sell, becoming rich and eventually telling the story to all the neighbors, which shames Anansi into temporarily giving up his evil ways.
• "Why White Ants Always Harm Man's Property"
• During another terrible famine, Anansi finds a dead antelope and tries to take it home to his family to eat, but Wolf and Leopard steal it. So, he tricks them into letting him hang them from a tree by promising to sharpen their teeth for them, then takes back the meat and hosts a huge party right in front of them where the whole village eats the antelope meat. Later on, a family of white ants (termites) passes by and helps Wolf and Leopard escape their bonds, so the two animals offer to prepare a feast for the white ants a few days later. Anansi hears and dresses his own children up as white ants, and they go and eat the feast themselves. When the real white ants arrive, Leopard and Wolf assume they are really Anansi's children and kill all of them but the father, who in anguish vows never to help anyone again, and only to destroy.
• "The Squirrel and the Spider"
• Anansi uses trickery to steal the crops which Squirrel has so carefully tended, by pretending that the fields were his all along because he built a roadway to them, where Squirrel always came by the trees. He and his family carry away all of the crops to sell them, but a huge storm makes them drop their crops to hide. When they return, a crow has his wings spread over the crops to keep them dry, whereupon the crow claims the crops as his own and takes them to sell himself, leaving Anansi with no reward for his theft.
• "Why We See Ants Carrying Bundles As Big As Themselves"
• Anansi and his son both need rain to make their fields grow, and a dwarf comes along to his son and offers his help. The son taps the dwarf lightly with two small sticks, which makes it rain. Anansi, thinking to make the dwarf produce double the rain, beats him so hard with two large sticks that he dies. Anansi tries to frame it on his son, but his son is too clever and tricks Anansi into taking the dwarf (a close friend of the king) to the king himself. The king is angry and has the dwarf's body magically sealed in a box which is placed on top of Anansi's head to carry forevermore. The only way to get rid of the box is to get someone else to carry it for him. Anansi tricks Ant into carrying it for him, which is why we always see ants carrying such heavy loads.
• "Why Spiders Are Always Found in Corners of Ceilings"
• Anansi's family has a magnificent harvest, but Anansi wants it all to himself, so he tricks his wife and son into leaving for awhile, telling them he'll be gone on business, and when he returns they will all feast together. Really, he stays and eats half the harvest himself. His son discovers that someone has been stealing from them and sets up a rubber man, to which Anansi gets stuck. Out of shame when he is discovered by all the townspeople for stealing from his own family, he shapeshifts into a spider and hides in a corner of the ceiling, which is why spiders always hide there.
• "The Grinding-Stone that Ground Flour by Itself"
• During a great famine, Anansi's cousin discovers a stone that grinds flour of its own accord, next to a stream of honey, but he only ever takes enough to feed his family. Realizing that his cousin's family is not starving like everyone else, Anansi tricks his cousin into showing him where the stone is. Rather than only taking what he needs, and against the stone's begging, Anansi takes the entire stone from village to village, carried on his head, and sells the flour, making a lot of money. But when he tries to take the stone off his head at the end of the day, it refuses, and instead grinds him up, which is why we often find lots of small spiders under huge stones.

Spider image from Good Free Photos

Week Eight Progress

1. Looking Back: Over the first half of this semester, I've found that I've actually enjoyed some of these assignments more than I expected, and I've been relatively proud of the work I've done, particularly the stories I've written. I've always enjoyed writing, but fiction - and especially fairytales and folklore - has never been something I've been good at or really even tried. I've had a good time reading most of the stories so far, and I think my note-taking strategy has fallen into a good and productive rhythm. That said, I'm not very pleased with myself in the realm of extra credit; I had intended, at the beginning of the semester, to be quite diligent at working ahead and completing extra credit work. But so far, I've not done a very good job of that.
2. Looking Forward: That said, the most obvious segue into what I plan to do for the rest of the semester is that I hope to be more consistent with the extra credit work and perhaps even begin working ahead somewhat. I think the best way for me to accomplish this would be to do the extra credit at the start of the week, rather than putting it off until the end and eventually just not doing it at all. I've been avoiding doing it at the very beginning of the week because my week is very front-loaded when it comes to classes, but it would be feasible for me to try to do more of this work on perhaps Wednesdays.
3. Image:

Image of a mountain climber from Pexels

Week Eight Comments and Feedback

This post is meant to be a reflection on the quality of the feedback that I've given and received in this class so far.

1. Feedback In: So far, I would rate the quality of the feedback I've received at around a three out of five. I appreciate that people have been quite positive and friendly in their comments, and many have pointed out the things I've done well in my posts, which is helpful to know which things I should continue doing or expand on. That said, not very many of the comments I've received have included much in the way of constructive criticism, which makes them not very useful for revising my work. I appreciate that people want to be nice, and I am certainly grateful for the compliments, but I can't know how to fix my work if no one will verbalize what's not working.
   
2. Feedback Out: I guess I would rate the quality of the feedback I've been putting out at about a four to a four and a half out five. I've taken several writing workshop classes for my minor, so I've had a fair amount of experience with offering constructive feedback on writing. I make an effort to point out things that could be improved and offer solution to address them. That said, I think my comments have been lacking in providing anything constructive that doesn't pertain to the writing/storytelling (i.e., I know I haven't given much feedback, if any, on website structure and appearance or anything along those lines), so that might be something for me to look for in the future.
   
3. Blog Comments: I've enjoyed reading other people's blog posts, stories, and introductions a lot. I'm a huge fan of getting to know people, so it's been really fun to see their introductions and get a sense of who they are, then see that come through in their writing. I'm hopeful that my blog offers a similar sense to those who read it.
   
4. Looking Forward: Moving forward, I'll make an effort to pay attention to the actual websites/blogs and their structures and offer feedback on those things as well, rather than limiting myself to just commenting on the writing and the stories themselves.
   
5. Image: I chose the following image because I really like the idea it puts across. External feedback is helpful, but taking the time to self-reflect and provide your own constructive criticism is important, too.

Image from Cheezburger

Week Eight Reading and Writing

After looking back through my website and blog, I realized that the website was just far more pleasing to the eye, whereas my blog was looking a little frumpy (Actually, it reminded me of the kind of website I'd associate with the early days of the internet, before people figured out how to make websites look nice. Oof.), so I made some changes and I'm now much happier with its overall appearance. I also moved the navigation bar from the bottom of the page to the right side, which will be more convenient for my readers. I did not make any changes to the website, however, because I think its layout is fine as is, and the layout has been mentioned positively in a few of the comments on my wall, so why fix what ain't broken, right?

I am fairly happy with the way my stories have been coming out so far, and I'm content with my reading notes strategy - it's a little hefty, but I feel like it gives me a good foundation when I'm working on writing the stories. My stories have been pretty varied so far, so it'll be interesting to work on my project, since it has not only a unifying author, but a unifying theme as well. For the storybook, I chose the story that I felt would be the most difficult for me to rework first (i.e. the one that would be the most different from the original), so that I could get it out of the way and have plenty of time for editing if need be. I do have a few areas in the story that I feel could use some revision, though I will probably wait for some feedback from others before beginning, as I'd like to hear some second opinions. Still, I think I like how the general tone and themes of my storybook are coming along, despite my few issues with story number one.


As for my favorite of the images I've included in one of my reading notes posts, you won't be too surprised when you find out that it's this picture of my cat:

Actually, I believe that if Atticus had a Tinder, this would be his profile pic. But cats don't have Tinder and neither do I, so I'm posting it here for all of you to enjoy. (You're welcome.)


Looking forward, I'm excited to get the next couple stories for my storybook published, and to see a few more of the readings (I've really been enjoying learning about the differences and similarities between folklore from all over the world during all different time periods!).

Week Seven Story: The Turtle and the Fisherman

Once upon a time, a young turtle with a kind heart loved to swim in the open seas. She would catch the currents and ride the waves, splashing happily and without care. Now, one day, this young turtle was slicing through the waters at what she thought was a safe distance from a little island; fishermen seldom came out this far. However, she suddenly felt a net tightening around her little shell, hoisting her upwards out of the water, and she quickly tucked her legs and head inside out of fear!

Peering out of her armor, she glimpsed a handsome young man hauling another net - this one filled with flopping fish - into his boat. Poking her head out just a little, she cleared her throat to get his attention.

"Excuse me, kind sir. I know that you are a fisherman, and that this is how you live," she began, "but seeing as how I am but a young turtle, and very small, I wonder if you might release me? There is not much meat on my bones, as you can see."

The man thought for a moment, and then he denied her.

"Turtle soup is my very favorite meal," he explained without a hint of remorse, "and even if I cannot eat you yet, surely you shall grow, and then you will make a very fine soup."

Seeing that pleading would get her nowhere, the little turtle sought a different tack.

"But, good sir, then you would have to keep me in water, and feed me, and keep me safe," she ventured, "lest I should dry up, or grow too thin instead of becoming fat for eating, or be stolen by your neighbors."

The man plopped himself down next to the netted turtle and seemed to become very perplexed, but he said nothing as he thought. After a good little while, the turtle spoke once more.

"Perhaps," she suggested, "you might let me go, and I can go about the business of fattening myself up right here in the sea, and it will not cost you any time or work. Then, once I've gotten quite large and delicious, I will come back and meet you here again, and you may make me into soup and eat me. This way, you won't have to feed me any of the precious fish you catch, and I may enjoy a year or two more of life before I perish, if perish I must."

Although this plan seemed good to him, it did occur to the man that perhaps the turtle would not come back, and then he would have no turtle and no soup. So, he still refused to cut the turtle loose, saying, "You turtles are clever creatures, and this is certainly a trick."

Desperate to return to the sea and terribly afraid of losing her young life, the turtle began to spin for the man a story. She told him of a beautiful princess - the daughter of the sea god, no less - who lived richly and lavishly in a shimmering palace under the sea, and who was searching even now for a handsome fisherman to keep her company and become her husband. At this, the fisherman puffed out his chest, as he supposed himself to be the handsomest fisherman on his island at the very least, and he believed himself quite deserving of a beautiful princess and endless riches.

"If you'd like, I could take you to her," said the turtle casually, "but alas! These heavy ropes will hinder me from showing you the way, as I cannot swim with them tied around me like this!"

Greedily, the fisherman agreed to cut off the netting which ensnared the little turtle, only tying a thin string from one of the turtle's flippers to keep from losing track of her while they swam. But as they dove deeper and deeper, the man found that he could not swim as far as the turtle, and needed to go back up for air. Letting go the string briefly, he kicked up towards the surface, but when he again dove down, the turtle was nowhere to be seen. After a good deal of time in searching, the man returned to his boat, only to find that in his absence, seabirds had eaten the majority of his fish. So he went home with no fish and no turtle, and he was altogether very sad about missing out on his favorite soup.

The turtle, meanwhile, sought out a friend to help her cut off the string, and then happily returned to her peaceful life, though she never again ventured quite so close to the shore.

*Author's Note: This story is based on the story of "Uraschimataro and the Turtle," which is a traditional Japanese folktale. In the original, the fisherman is merciful to the turtle and lets her go, and many years later the turtle saves him from a sea storm and takes him to live with the daughter of the sea god as her immortal husband. However, at long last he discovers that time has passed faster than he thought, and everyone he loved is dead. In a moment of foolishness, he loses his immortality and ages three hundred years in a few moments, then dies. In my story, I wanted to imagine what would have happened had the turtle been captured by a less kind fisherman than Uraschimataro, and what she might have done to win back her freedom. 

Bibliography: "Japanese Fairytales" from The Violet Fairy Book by Andrew Lang, illustrated by H. J. Ford (1901). Web source.

Image of a turtle from Max Pixel