Myth-Folklore

This week I am reading stories from the Czech Folktales Unit by Josef Baudis . I typically like to look at all of the units before I make a selection, but I thought I have to read the Czech unit since my father's side of the family is Czechoslovakian. There were a lot of new and familiar things in this unit. I think the Waternick story was my favorite. It reminded me of Hanzel und Gretyl, which is one of my childhood favorites. I would like to know a little bit more about what a waternick is because I would like to think that it could fit in my storybook project. However, it would still be nice to recreate a waternick story this week. Another thing that I liked in Part A of this reading unit was the enchanted swords in the story, The Twin Brothers. It was interesting that one of the brother's sword would rust if the other one was in trouble. One thing that I found myself confused about is why one twin decided to hide his identity, pretending to be his brother. I could not t

IN A LAND, far, far away there lived a maiden, and her name was Paulina. Now Paulina was not like any of the other maiden's who lived in the kingdom. This maiden was independent. She lived off in a forest, next to a river, in a cottage all alone. She did not like to be seen because she was always gawked and laughed at by the others. Unlike the ideal maiden, Paulina was six feet and three inches tall, she was as strong as an ox, and could put away more mead than any other man in the land. She had big burly arms and thick thundering thighs. Because of her stature, she had to make her own clothes and became quite good at it too. That was one thing she did not mind when forced to visit the kingdom's village, her clothes were more extravagant than anyone else's. One day, Paulina had to run some errands. So, she put on her best dress and fanciest shoes, she fixed her hair and makeup, grabbed her satchel, and left for the kingdom. She first stopped at the bakery, no one could re

As I said before, for this week's reading I chose the Stories from the Faerie Queene by Mary Macleod.   I wanted to mention something that I found interesting in the first story in part B of this reading unit titled, What Britomart Saw in the Enchanted Chamber . I know I have mentioned things similar to what I am about to point about before, but I can never pass it up because it is sort of a fascinating quality in stories. What I am referring to is how the characters Britomart sees are portrayed in the scene. She sees beings, i.e., men and women, however, they are also feelings that people have, which you can identify by their name and the way that they carry themselves, i.e., the clothes that they have on their backs, the facial expressions that they carry on their faces, the way they walk, etc. To give a few examples, some of these characters are Fear, Desire, Doubt, Fancy, Danger, Hope, Dissembling, Suspicion, Grief, Fury, and Spite, quite honestly the list kept dragging on. I

When searching for a story that I wanted to read for this week I stumbled upon  Stories from the Faerie Queene by Mary Macleod . The first thing that caught my eye was the word  Faerie Queene,  I have never seen it spelled in that way before. I looked it up to see if there was any difference between that and the spelling of  fairy queen , but I could not find anything different. I assume it was just the language from the time when Edmund Spenser wrote the original poem. The other thing that made me want to read this story was the magical weapons. I thought there would be some useful ideas for my project and the storytelling assignment.  Right off the bat, the reader  is introduced  to the enchanted weapon, which is a spear that Britomart uses to knock Sir Guyon off of his horse. I thought that their introduction to the enchanted weapon and characters was great because it immediately creates some conflict between the characters. Sir Guyon is upset that he has been knocked off of hi

This week I am reading  The Nursery Rhyme Book  by Andrew Lang . I chose this reading because I am needing some inspiration for the semester project and I thought it would be fun to recreate a story from this unit. Part A of this unit has the following types of Nursery Rhymes: tales, proverbs, songs, riddles, paradoxes, charms and lullabies, and games. I would have to say that my favorite type of nursery rhymes so far have been the riddles. I have always found riddles fun and engaging. The ones that I read in this unit were kind of weird, in my opinion. I think they are weird because most of them are ambiguous and the answers seem random. However, some of them did make more sense after knowing the answer.  Here is an example of a riddle I found strange: "LONG legs, crooked thighs, Little Head, and no eyes." And the answer to this riddle is a 'pair of tongs.' Personally, I never would have guessed the answer, but it makes sense once it is revealed. Another rea

For the second part of this weeks reading notes I will be finishing  Native American Marriage Tales unit by Stith Thompson . I wanted to look into the first story, The Dog-Husband , because there were a few interesting aspects to it. First, I thought it was weird that the young girl became pregnant by her dog. It was understood that no one knew the dog could transform into a human at night, but did that include the young girl? The story says that she became pregnant, so I immediately think (assuming she was not aware of his ability to morph) he took advantage of the girl in her sleep. There was also a story in Part A where a man takes advantage of a Buffalo-Woman. Other than this unit, I cannot recall stories where women are taken advantage of. I am sure there are some, I just have not come across it yet or I am forgetting. However, it seems to be a common theme throughout Native American Marriage tales.  Another fascinating feature to this story of The Dog-Husband, in particul