[Week 11] Reading DIary - Welsh Tales (Emerson)

The Fairies of Caragonan
-The fairy queen and her helpers cure a man who was cursed by a witch. In return she asks for a plot of land so that she can build a ring. She also asked for him to build three walls around it.
-The man is teased while chasing a hare and is once again cursed by a witch.
-They cure the cows of a man and in return ask for his son to help them.
-The fairies use a pole and a mirror to give the boy visions. From his visions, they decide they need to go hare hunting near the mill.
-The boy goes to the mill and manages to kill the witch.
-The boy once again is used for visions. He follows them and buys and old cupboard that turns out to be full of gold.

Three Short Tales of Fairies

Craig-Y-Don Blacksmith
-Fairies appear to a drunk blacksmith and tell him he needs to turn his life around. He decides to take their advice and sobers up. One day, a  man brings a horse to him to be shod, but it ends up running away and moving the cauldron in the process. While fixing it up, the blacksmith finds money.

Old Gyilym
-A man finds some money which turned out to be a gift from fairies. Instead of using the money to be cheese, he goes out drinking. Later that night he gets taken in as a guest at a fairy house. He is punished and when he goes home his wife is mad and tells him it's no wonder they punished him since he wasted their gift.

The Baby-Farmer
-A baby-farmer finds money but still pretends to be poor. She kept two kids in good clothes and two in bad clothes. A man asks to see the kids and she brings out the badly dressed ones. When she goes to look for the well dressed children, they were gone and had been turned into fairies.

The Old Man and the Fairies

The Old Man and the Fairies
-A man falls asleep and is taken by fairies and shown their world. When he falls asleep again, they put him back where they found him. When he wakes up, his bag is full of gold. His wife is curious as to where he got the gold and he ends up telling her. But when he looks in the box for his money again, it's all cockle shells.

Tommy Pritchard
-A boy keeps finding six pences on his way to school. His dad gets angry that he won't tell him where he finds them and threatens to beat him, so the boy tells him. The next time he goes to look, all he finds is a cockle shell.

Kaddy's Luck
-Fairies used to leave a girl money every night. When she grew into a woman and had a baby with her husband, she told him about the money they used to give her. The baby was made small and never grew as punishment.

The Story of Gelert
-A prince has a dog beloved named Gelert. After the house is attacked by wolves, Gelert goes missing. The prince goes into the house to find Gelert and his baby surrounded by blood. Thinking that Gelert had hurt his baby, he kills him. It turns out Gelert had been attacking a wolf that was in the house and had accidentally knocked over the cradle. The prince is very upset and a funeral is held for Gelert.

Origin of the Welsh
-A wild tribe trains large birds called Rohs that are very fast and strong. They use them in battle to beat the Persians. The Persian king asks a magician to find a way to get rid of the birds, and the magician decides that the best thing he can do is to turn them into fairies. Since the tribal people lost their birds and were being attacked by the Persians, they decided to travel more. Many of them ended up on the British isles and that's how they became the Welsh.

Crows
-A man retells a dream he had about seven black crows seemingly warning him of his impending death. After retelling the story and going home, the man finds seven crows on top of his house. The man later dies.

The Fairy of the Dell
-The Fairy Queen of the Dell cures bewitched people of their curses. She is asked by the witch who cursed them to forgive her so she does a ritual  to get rid of the devils and cleanse the witch. The witch is thankful and asks how she can help the queen. The queen gives the former witch the ability to help others and gives her the name Madame Dorothy. She becomes a famous care giver.

[Week 9] Essay - Reflection on my Writing

(Image of a frustrated tortoise from Oskarl Kettunen. I feel like this tortoise.)

I’d like to use this essay assignment to reflect on how my writing has changed throughout the semester. When I first started I was anxious because I hadn’t written anything (creatively) in so long. I quickly became more comfortable and felt like I had all kinds of fun ideas waiting to come out of my head. But then I suddenly lost that inspiration and I don’t know what to do now. I feel like my writing has become worse than ever and it’s pretty upsetting.

                

There are a couple of things I think I could attribute this lack of inspiration to. I’ve been feeling particularly stressed out lately and I’m not really sure why. Whenever I feel overwhelmed like that I tend to just break down and stop working like I used to. I also haven’t been reading stories that really appealed to me. Usually as I read a story will pop out to me and yell, “Write me!” But lately that hasn’t been happening.

                

I’ve been wondering how I can get myself out of this rut. I think to begin with I need to work up a little more confidence. I tend to put myself down for every sentence I write and it really slows me down. I should also start looking over the reading units more carefully to make sure the stories are something I’ll be interested in. In addition, digging through others’ stories and reading more in general would probably help. My peak in inspiration took place during a time in which I was reading a lot every day so there’s probably a connection.

               

Another factor for me will be figuring out how to manage my time better. At beginning of the semester I thought I’d be getting things done early. But instead I feel like I’m just barely getting by. I need to figure out how to prioritize and juggle my other classwork. Also I have to figure out how to not fall into a senioritis slump!

[Week 9] Storytelling - Atungait's Visit

Author’s Note: The story of Atungait left the biggest impression on me. Not because it was profound or especially beautiful in some way, but because this guy just ran into a village of disabled people and stole their toy for apparently no reason. No explanation was given. He did nothing with the toy in the story. I’m so confused. So I decided to attempt to write from the perspective of one of the villagers. For your reference, here is the explanation provided for ajangat: "a game played with rings and a stick; the 'ring and pin game.'"

(Inuit artwork from Wikimedia Commons)

We were surprised to get a visit from Atungait and his wife. Happy, even! Not many people would choose to spend time with a village of disabled folk. We are seen as the lesser people in society, so it’s rare to have able-bodied visitors. What we thought was a blessing turned out to be a disaster.

Atungait and his wife generally kept to themselves. They would come out of their tent for a bit when we all played ajangat. Atungait would stare at our ajangat with hunger in his eyes. Strange that he would be so obsessed with our toy, but I suppose it was very beautiful. As we’re all disabled, there is nothing we can do all day but play ajangat. Our ajangat means everything to us, and the copper one we have now is the village treasure. We have plenty of food and plenty of fur to keep us warm, yes. But without amusement life is dull, so although it is just a toy our ajangat means a lot to us.

One day while we were playing, Atungait stood to the side watching again with that look in his eyes. It made me uncomfortable. I told one of my friends about the way he looked at it. Instead of being worried, my friend became excited. He was proud that such a fine, able-bodied warrior would admire our treasure. I tried to tell others but they all had the same reaction. And so I gave up on my warnings and the game carried on.

We were all outside playing ajangat (as ususal) when we heard loud cracking sounds. We went off in a hurry to find the source of the noise, leaving the copper ajangat on the ground. Atungait was standing surrounded by the remains of our broken sledges with a hammer in his hand. He had destroyed our sledges! Upon seeing us, he immediately ran in the direction we had just come from. We followed and saw him snatch up our copper ajangat before jumping on to his own sledge and riding off into the distance. Many tried to follow, but to no avail. Our treasure, our only form of entertainment, was taken away from us.

Eskimo Folk-Tales by Knud Rasmussen with illustrations by native Eskimo artists (1921).

[Week 9] Reading Diary - Eskimo Folk-Tales

Eskimo Folk-Tales

The Coming of Men, A Long, Long While Ago

-Creation tale that talks about the first man and woman and how the human population grew. It also talks about how death was created in exchange for the stars, moon, and sun. Also a brief freaky zombie-esque part where a body doesn't know how to be dead.

Nukúnguasik, who Escaped from the Tupilak

-Nukúnguasik catches one of his brothers making a Tupilak. The brother dies and the other brothers decide to search for him.They find his body being eaten by the Tupilak.

The Woman Who Had a Bear as a Foster-Son

-An old woman takes in a bear as her foster child. At first it's small enough that it can play with the children, but eventually it gets too strong and is taken along to hunt instead. It ends up killing a man who tried to attack it and the old woman has to part with it.

Qalagánguasê, Who Passed to the Land of Ghosts

-A paralyzed boy who lost his parents and sister sees ghosts when he's home alone. The ghosts say he will regain his strength if he doesn't tell people about seeing them, but he can't help himself. One night he is left tied to his bed while everyone else goes to a singing contest. His parents visit him (in ghost-form) and make him a ghost as well.

Isigâligârssik

-A man marries a little girl (?) and is then allowed to learn from the village wizard who only teaches to married men. The wizard somehow takes his wife away from him and mocks him every time he tries to go to a meeting. He ends up getting stabbed by the wizard. He challenges the wizard to a bow shoot-off and wins and gets his wife back.

The Insects that Wooed a Wifeless Man

-A wifeless man has trouble finding a girl and sleeping for too long. One day he helps one of the Noseless Ones and is told never to speak of the incident to anyone and he will be fortunate. He ends up hunting well, being less sleepy, and attracting women but it all goes away when he tells the story. His new wife leaves him when the fortune wears off and he follows. Weird stuff happens in which insects try to woo him and he refuses and then is with his wife again but wakes up and finds himself alone.

Makíte

-Makite leaves his home because he is ashamed that he can't hunt well. He ends up at the house of a lone-dweller (hermit?) who tries to kill him in the night. He runs away and finds a house of dwarves who warn him that inland people are coming. A flood happens and Makite ends up living there.

Atungait, Who Went A-Wandering

-Aatungait, who turns out to be a wizard who can fly, goes on a journey with his wife. He meets all kinds of people and even steals a toy from some disabled children. In the end, he catches his wife cheating on him and kills her. 

The Giant Dog

-A man has a dog that he gives the amulet he would have given a son. The dog grows super big and strong because of it. One day tt kills a man one day so the owner has to run away with the dog. Turns out the dog liked to massacre the inland-dwellers in its spare time so they all became afraid of dogs. 

Papik, Who Killed His Wife's Brother
-A mother accuses Papik of killing her son who he goes hunting with often. She drowns herself and comes back as a spirit in the shape of a bear and eats him before ravaging the town. The people manage to trap the spirit and cut it open and find Papik's torn up body.

Pâtussorssuaq, Who Killed His Uncle
-Another story about a man being punished for killing someone. A man kills his uncle so that he can be with his wife. He is only with her for a little while before she dies. Later he is killed by a fox who is actually he spirit of his uncle. 

The Wife Who Lied
-A warning to liars. A woman who isn't too fond of her new village goes home and pretends her husband has been neglecting her. The old village declare a war and slaughter the women of the other village. The men realize she made this happen and they kill her.

The Eagle and the Whale
-A woman who is in need of a husband is taken away from her home by a man who turned himself into an eagle. She manages to escape with the help of her brothers, and they kill the eagle. She is then taken away again by a whale and has to be rescued by her brothers. They kill the whale as well.

Atdlarneq, The Great Glutton
-While on a hunting expedition, a man visits a house in which women are preparing for the master of the house to return. He tries to hide, but the master has copper cheeks and can smell him so he comes out of his hiding place. He is forced to eat food until he nearly dies. Then he is freed.

Ángángŭjuk
-A woman allows her son to play outside but he goes missing. The father is angry and threatens to kill the woman, but she asks him to wait and ask a wizard to help locate him first. Eventually he is found being taken care of by inland people. The people are put to sleep and the son is rescued.

Âtârssuaq
-A son is born to a strong warrior and he is trained to be able to swim underwater for a long time. One day his father goes missing and word gets out that their village is going to be attacked. The boy uses his swimming abilities to kill the attackers by himself. 

Tungujuluk and Saunikoq
-A man nearly kills his neighbor's soon while in the shape of a bear because he was so jealous that he didn't have a son. The child runs away before anything can happen and the father realizes it was his neighbor. He takes the form of a walrus and scares the other man while he's in the shape of a bear. He learns his lesson and is ashamed.

Kánagssuaq
-A man whose family and village was starving finally manages to catch seals to eat. He had a little trouble with his kayak and another man helped him. Once he got back on his feet and was able to bring home food every day again, he took food to the man that helped him as a thank you.

[Week 8] Reading Diary - Self-Assessment

In the beginning, I wanted to write pretty detailed diary posts. I set out to write down the names of all the main characters and to give a little bit of info on each of them. As I started to write my notes, though, I realized it would take far too much time to do that while reading. So instead, I’ve started taking down notes as quickly as I can without losing too much detail. The length and style of note-taking really depends on the kind of story I’m reading. If there are a lot of shorter stories I won’t take as many notes, but if they’re longer and more detailed then I’ll try to get some of the smaller things in there too. It seems that the shorter stories tend to be more focused on one lesson so it’s easy give a little summary of them.

Lately I’ve been switching back and forth between writing paragraphs and taking notes. Paragraphs are nice because I can read the story and then write everything out all in one. If it’s longer or if I get overwhelmed for some reason, I tend to use bullet points. That way I can read a section and then summarize it while it’s fresh in my mind. With either style, I tend to feel like I go overboard on my note taking. I thought that I would need to take longer notes in order to do my storytelling assignment. Instead, I’ve found that inspiration doesn’t come from the notes I take, it comes from the story itself. So while I’m reading something will pop out at me and I’ll go, “I want to do this!” and I keep it in my mind for later. If I need a reminder of how the story goes, I can usually just read the first sentence of my notes and remember what happened.


I think from now on I’ll try to make my notes more concise. I haven’t been concerning myself with things like grammar since this is just for me, but if I made them concise and focused on grammar I think I’d be exercising my writing muscles and saving time at the same time. I also want to start adding pictures. I did it for a few of the posts but it kind of dwindled off because I get so tired of mindlessly taking notes. I need to make it more interesting!

[Week 7] Essay - Japanese Fairy Tales vs Modern Entertainment

(Creepy Japanese dolls from Wikimedia Commons)

                While I was reading the stories in the Japanese Fairy Tales (Ozaki) unit, I realized that it had something in common with the other Japanese unit that I read. The stories in both of them tend to differ from the other things I’ve read for this class in that they are less tragic. Most of the ones I’ve read either end tragically or in a gory way, or they contain similar elements. The Japanese stories sometimes have sad elements but the imagery tends to be less disturbing and it usually ends on a good note. In many cases, the ending will say something like, “and he lived happily for many years until the end of their days, and their children took over the farm and it was very prosperous.”

                This was also surprising to me because in most of the modern Japanese media I’ve read or watched, the themes tend to be pretty tragic. There are many dramas (TV series) that centers on the main character’s last days before they die of a horrible illness. A lot of movies have also been made that are full of gore and horror. I don’t watch much anime, but from what I’ve seen and heard there are a lot of series that have the same kind of tragic subject matters.

                Of course, not all modern Japanese media is like this. Japan is also famous for its crazy variety shows and adorable cartoons. In my experience, though, there seems to be an equal amount of dark stories in a way that I'm not really used to seeing as an American. After reading such nice Japanese fairy tales, I can’t help but wonder if there was a reason for a shift in interest. People don’t talk about it much so I’m not sure if it’s true, but I’ve heard that there was a big shift in thinking in Japan after WWII (or earlier) similar to the shift that took place in Germany. Perhaps the dark history of their country has lead writers to focus on the darker parts of life.

[Week 7] Storytelling - Hase-Hime's Letter

Author's Note: This story is based off of the story of Hase-Hime in the Japanese Fairy Tales (Ozaki) unit. It's about a princess who is abused by her jealous step-mother after her real mother dies. At one point, the step-mother tries to have a servant kill Hase-Hime but instead the servant runs away with her and his wife and lives in the mountains with them until Hase-Hime's father finds her. I decided to write this story from Hase-Hime's perspective at that point in the story because I like to think that she wasn't oblivious enough to not think about these things while away from home. The biggest change is that in the original story, Hase-Hime doesn't actually seem to realize the wine her brother drank was poisoned.

(Japanese mountains from Pixbay)

Dear Father,

                I have no way of having this letter sent to you, but there are some things on my mind that I need to at least get out on paper. Maybe I will give this letter to you when we are reunited. I’m not sure yet.

                Before her death, mother told me to always be an obedient child. She told me to be submissive of my elders and kind to those less fortunate than I, and to always behave. I think that she was very wise to teach me this, and I have tried as hard as possible to follow these rules. But there are some cases in which an elder may not deserve such nice treatment. For example, what if an elderly woman tripped a child for no reason and laughed at him as he cried? Or what if I had an older brother who would always bully me and never let me have peace? In the past I have been a good girl in these kinds of situations. I would keep silent and take whatever was dealt to me. I’m beginning to think that I should stop. Mother wouldn’t have wished for me to be treated badly, right?

                You are a good and kind man, so I don’t think you would allow harm to come to me on purpose. You have shown me nothing but love and I have no reason to distrust you. But I can’t imagine what drew your new wife. Do you not see how cruel she can be? She becomes enraged with jealous at every little accomplishment I make. Remember when my little brother died? I saw the egotistical smirk on her face when she brought the wine into the room, and the panic in her eyes when our cups were switched around. I am very sure that she had poisoned the wine and was trying to kill me that day.

                And now, I am living with step-mother’s servant and his wife in the middle of nowhere. Why? Because he was asked to take me away and kill me because I had behaved “badly.” In truth, I did nothing but succeed and make her jealous. Is that so bad? I hope that I will be able to discuss this with you upon being reunited. I just haven’t had the confidence to do so until now, and I’m not sure I will later.

Love,

Your Daughter Hase-Hime

Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki (1908).