Reading Diary Week 6 - South African Folk-Tales

South African Folk-Tales by James Honey

I have read a lot of animal stories so far this semester, and these stories continue with that pattern. A lot of these animal stories were sad, and didn't have happy endings.

The Lost Message - This story is about ants. It talks about how ants are always being killed and eaten, and they have found no solution to helping it. The insect kind finally sends the ants a message about unity and working together, so that they will be saved. The message never gets to the ants, and they are still wandering around without unity, and still an easy target.

Monkey and the Fiddle - This was one story that has a happy ending. The monkey can play a beautiful song on the fiddle which makes everyone that hears it have to dance. I like the idea of this, a magical fiddle and  a magical song. At the end of the story the animals beg the monkey to stop playing because they are tired of dancing. The monkey gets his way because of this and finally stops playing.

Jackal Fools Lion Again - A lot of these stories have to do with jackal and lion. This story I though was really sad. The lion was trying to help everyone and hunting to provide food. Jackal takes all the food for himself and starves lions family. Jackal then kills lion by tricking him to eat a hot stone. I know that it is typical for lion to hunt jackal and him to be the dominant animal. Regardless of what usually happened with lion, I still felt bad for him because he was just trying to help.

Story of a Dam - Again this story has to do with jackal and lion. I though this story was also really sad. Jackal was hurting other animals and being mean, and in the end he kills lion. I do not like the jackal in these stories, he is a very annoying character. He does harm to others and gets away with it. This is an interesting twist to see lion as the one being killed each time.

(Jackal and the Lion - Wikipedia)

Thoughts about Comments

I think I have done a good job leaving comments. Like anything, I have improved each week now that I know more about blogs and writing stories. I could become better at leaving things for people to work on when commenting. In my comments I often only talk about the good things and things I like about the story. I don't usually talk about things that could use improvement. The stories I have read so far have all been really good, so its hard to write any negatives about them. I personally would like for people to leave comments about things I could work on in my story because that will make it better. So I will try to work on this in the future.

Storytelling Week 5: How Cat and Dog Became Enemies

For centuries cat and dog roamed the earth together. Man loved both cat and dog, but they both also lived free in the wild together. These animals would lie in the warm sun together and chase butterflies in the wind. Cat and dog often hunted together and ate similar foods. These two creatures looked out for one another.

Each year there was a grand gathering of all the dogs and cats in the surrounding areas. Everyone brought gifts and food of all kind to this grand event. Each year the dog leader Fido, and the cat leader Lily sat side by side at the center of the gathering. These two leaders were great friends and worked together so make all the animals of the land happy.

(Lily - Wikipedia)

One of the main events of this annual gathering was the big games. All the cats and dogs created teams and competed against each other in various games. The cats were usually good at the games of trickery, such as hide and seek. The dogs were usually good at games that involved strength, like tug of war. This year was the hundreth anniversary of this gathering, and the games were more grand and competitive than ever.

For the first time there was a grand prize for the team who won the most games. The winning cat team would compete against the winning dog team for an all out final games battle. The cats and dogs prepared for these games for weeks, never taking a day off to rest. They practiced balance, agility, speed, strength, focus and endurance. Every cat and dog believed that they had trained hard enough that they deserved to win that final prize.

The day finally came for the big games to start. Fido and Lily blew the opening horn to start the first race. As the day progressed it was clear what teams were in the running to compete in the final games battle. At the end of the day there were obvious winners for each cat and dog team. The dog team that won was called the Hip Hoppers, because they were quick on their toes. The winning cat team was the Sly Sneakers because they were expert hiders and trickers.

(Dog on the Hip Hoppers - Wikipedia)

Both teams went home that night to gear up for the next day. All the other cats and dogs went home sad about not winning, but also excited to cheer on their friends in the upcoming game battle.

All the cat's and dog's woke early that next morning anxious for the days festivities to come. Both sides were getting a little heated with each other because they had trained so hard for this and wanted to make their species proud. The Hip Hoppers and the Sly Sneakers went back and forth all day switching off winning and losing each game thrown their way. The crowd was going crazy from the excitement! They shouted advice and encouragement to their friends.

The last event of the day was finally here and both the teams were tied. Because these teams were tied this event was what would decide who won the grand battle and the grand prize. This final event was tug of war. The game went on for nearly ten minutes. Both of these teams were not giving up. The crowd was going crazy and wanted their teams to win just as bad as the teams competing. The cats were running in circles around the arena because they couldn't sit still from all the excitement. The dogs were concentrated on giving the Hip Hoppers all the advice and motivation possible.

The Hip Hoppers and Sly Sneakers finally started to tire out, and one team had to give up. The Sly Sneakers could no longer hold on so in unison they all let go. This caused the Hip Hoppers to all fall back on top of each other. The animals in the crowd were in utter shock. All the dogs rushed onto the field to help the Hip Hoppers up from their fall. The cats in the crowd ran to console the Sly Sneakers. The arena was now a very crowded place with all the animals in it. The cats and the dogs started fighting and talking badly about each other. Fido and Lily went into the pile of animals to try and calm them all down. They were unable to help the situation and eventually got involved with the fighting as well. From this day on cat and dog have never liked each other. They are often still seen competing for the attention of humans and competing for objects and food.

Author's note:
This story is based on two Khasi folktales. These stories both describe different ways these animals came to live with humans.

The first story is "How the Cat Came to Live With Man." This story is about a cat who has a lion as a brother. The lion is not nice to the cat and one day the cat meets a group of nice children that pet her and treat her well. The cat ends up running away and staying with the children after her brother gets really mad at her. This is how cats came to live with man.

The second story is "How the Dog Came to Live With Man." A dog goes to an annual gathering where dogs from all over bring goods and food. This dog gets made fun of for what he brings to the gathering because it smells bad. The dog confides in a human about being made fun of. He becomes very fond of this human and continues to live with him because all the dogs treated him badly. This is how dog came to live with man.

I thought it would be interesting to add to these stories and make a story about dogs and cats instead of their relation to humans. Both of these stories are about the animals going against their own species. I wanted to make a story about them sticking together with their own kind.


Bibliography: How the Cat Came to Live With Man and How the Dog Came to Live With Man, Folktales of the Khasis, by Mrs K.U. Rafi, 1920.

Reading Diary Week 5 - Khasi Folktales Unit Continued

Khasi Folktales Unit, By: Mrs. K.U. Rafy

These story's went along with the same themes as the first set of stories. I noticed that there are a lot of Lions in these stories. For the most part they all have animals as the main characters in them too.

What Caused the Shadows on the Moon - There were 4 brothers and sisters of the moon. The older of the siblings were not as pretty or good as the younger 2 siblings. One of the older brothers goes off and betrays his family, and hangs out with the wrong people. When he returns home his mom throws ash in his face because of all his wrong doings. This ash has stayed till this day and thats why there are dark spots on the moon.

What Makes the Lightening - There is a big feast/gathering with all the animals. Thunder is the one who summons everyone to the feast. Thunder asks to hold Lynx's sword, and he moves the sword so fast that it flashes and almost like a flame blinds everyone. All the animals ran away in fear, and thunder and lightening have always gone hand and hand to this day.

The Lazy Tortoise - This Tortoise is very lazy and dirty. A star falls in love with her and comes down to earth and marries her. He could not see her laziness and dirty body from the sky. The star tries to get the Tortoise to change her ways, but she doesn't, and the star leaves his wife. The Tortoise begs for the start to return, but he never does.

How Cat came to Live with Man - This story was interesting because I really like the story about how dog came to live with man. This was a different story but had similar themes. The cats older brother is a lion, and he is mean to her. She runs off to find fire for her brother, but doesn't return because she finds loving children to play with and gets caught up with them. Her brother gets angry with her so she runs back to the humans, and had stayed with them ever since.

(Cat and Human - Wikimedia)

Reading Diary Week 5 - Khasi Folktales Unit

Khasi Folktales Unit, By: Mrs. K.U. Rafy

I really liked the stories in this section. They were all about animals, and just fun easy reads. For the most part each story has some type of lesson, such as fairytales and kids story's usually do.

The Tiger and the Monkey - This story shows the lesson that smarts and wit are more powerful than strength and fear. The monkeys trick the lion, and they end up winning in the end.

Lei Tree story - The smallest bird saves all of mankind. Again in this story it shows that smarts and paying attention to the things around you is more helpful/can make more of a change than just strength. These strong woodcutters would have never been able to do it without this one small bird. I also found it interesting that a lion licks the tree each night to heal it.

Hunting the stag lapalang - This was a sad story. It has the theme of true unconditional motherly love. It also shows that the child should have listened to his mother, because danger happened when he was away from his mom. His mom had good reason to worry.

The goddess Ka Ngot and Ka Iam- The more boastful and prideful of the sisters loses in the end. The more quiet sister takes the safer path and wins. This teaches us the lesson to be humble and not arrogant.

How the dog came to live with man - I love dogs so I loved this story. I think this is an interesting concept for a story and might be interested in writing my own story about how I think dog and man became friends. The dog gets shunned by his own kind and turns to a human man to tell about his sorrows. They become a great hunting team and help out each other.

(Dog and Man - Flickr)

Week 4 Storytelling: The Beautiful Fish

There once was a woman that went by the name Jan. Jan loved to be outside and wanted to explore everything the world had to offer. Jan loved doing adventurous things such as hiking up tall mountains, she also liked to relax and tend to her garden. Her favorite hobby, though, was fishing.

Jan always felt disconnected from other people and found that she connected with the earth and animals more. She never had many friends, definitely never a boyfriend of any sort. But she was happy like this. She found joy most in just being outside and connecting to nature.

One day on her normal fishing outings Jan caught a beautiful fish. She always ate what she caught, or she would just let the fish back into the water. Jan couldn’t seem to let this beautiful fish go, so she kept it. Once she was back home she debated on cutting this beautiful fish up for dinner, but could not bear to mess up its beauty. At a loss of what to do, she placed the fish in a big tub of water out in her garden and decided to deal with her dilemma in the morning. The beautiful fish was still swimming around in this tub, looking just as radiant as ever. 

When Jan woke up, she followed through with her normal routine of cooking breakfast and tidying up the house. Jan went outside to her garden in hopes of finding a ripe tomato for her breakfast. To her surprise, her garden was flourishing with perfectly grown veggies and plants of all kinds. Jan had no idea how this had all appeared overnight. She was so excited, though, that she didn’t think to much about how it happened.

Jan went along with her day as usually. She made many delicious recipes with the plants in her garden. She made homemade muffins and fed them to the birds at the end of her day. Once she got back home she realized she still hadn’t done anything with her beautiful fish. The fish looked just as radiant as it had the day before and was still in perfect condition. So Jan once again went to sleep and decided to leave the fish to deal with till the next morning.

(Jan's Overgrown Garden - Flickr)

That next morning Jan woke up and headed to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. Once again when she went to her garden she was in utter shock. All the vegetables she had used the day before were regrown and doubled! Her planters were no longer big enough to hold the amount of vegetation that was growing in them. Jan was now becoming more suspicious, but had no idea what could have caused this to happen. Jan then saw the beautiful fish and remembered that she needed to decide what to do with it today. So she put off her garden mystery for now and tended to her fish.

Jan took the fish into her house and rinsed it off in her kitchen sink to rid it of dirt. When she was rinsing the fish it began to grow and transform in front of her eyes! Startled, Jan dropped the fish into the sink and ran to the other side of the kitchen. Within seconds there was a stunning man in her kitchen where the fish had once been.

The man proceeded to explain to Jan what was going on so that she was no longer frightened. The beautiful fish had changed into a man during the night and tended to Jan's garden. He had healing powers and strong connections to the earth. This allowed him to grow any type of plant he wanted.

As days passed, Jan and the fish man began to grow fond of each other because of their deep connection to the earth. Jan found that it was nice to have someone to share her love of nature with. In the end, the fish man decided that he wanted to live out the rest of his life as a man and spend it with Jan. They then both lived happily ever after.

Author's Note: I based this story off of the story "The Fish-Peri." In this story the fish turns into a woman, and the woman cleans the man's house every night while he is sleeping. In my story I instead had the fish man tending to the garden and causing it to grow with his magical connection to earth each night. It is a man's job to provide for his family and place food on the table, so I thought this was a fitting comparison to the original story. I also thought it was an interesting concept to have a fish turn into a person's future spouse. I kept with this theme for my story, but the fish changes into a man instead.  My story also has the theme of nature, which is different form the original. Since this person changes from a fish into a human I like the idea of them being connected to nature. I think that this fish man is the perfect husband for Jan and is maybe the only person on this earth that she would be able to and want to connect with. I used the same general theme of the original story but changed it up to make it my own.

Bibliography: The Fish-Peri, A Turkish Fairy Tale, By Ignacz Kunos, 1913. 

Reading Diary week 4: Turkish Fairy Tales continued

Turkish Fairy Tales by Ignacz Kunos:

Some of these stories were shorter than the first section ones. I liked the short stories because I found them to be pretty entertaining. I didn’t really like the first story that I read in this second section, and found it to be pretty confusing honestly.

The second story was about a woodcutter, and how his wife fell into a well. The woodcutter leaves his wife in this well for the whole story. He tries to pull her up at some point but pulls up another man instead. This man he accidentally pulls up gives him 3 healing leaves. The woodcutter heals the princess and gets to marry her. I found this story sad because the whole time he seems to feel no remorse for leaving his wife in the well.

(The Woodcutter and the Well - Wikimedia)

I really like the soothsayer story. I like this story because it is a happy ending and a lot of these story’s aren’t. I thought it was very smart of the soothsayer to tell the slave to give the ring to the goose and cut the goose’s leg off. This story shows the theme of that its good to be truthful.

I also liked the wizard story. I like how the boy in the end becomes more powerfully and smart than his teacher, I again did think it was a little disturbing that he kills his teacher though. I thought it was cool how these wizards could turn into anything they wanted and all the animals.

Finally, I thought the liver story was unique. The style of this story reminds me of a traditional nursery rhyme type story. It builds and builds on each other. I might use this story setup for one of my own stories. It is very basic but entertaining, especially for young kids.

Reading Diary Week 4: Turkish Fairy Tales

Turkish Fairy Tales by Ignacz Kunos:

Overall I thought some of these stories were very odd, but also interesting. They were different than stories I have usually read. I found that I didn't like the first two stories of this section as much as I did the last two stories. 

The most interesting part of the first story for me was the ending. I kept waiting wanting to know how the boy was going to finally find fear, and I thought it was interesting how it happened. It was something small that ended up allowing him to identify the feeling of fear. A bird fly out and catches him by surprises and startles him, this is when he identifies what fear feels like.

My favorite of the stories is the 3^rd story, ‘The fish-Peri.’ I like the idea of this beautiful fish turning into a woman. This might be a possibility for me to write another story where a fish turns into someone. I thought all the crazy things that he had to do during the story were interesting also. How he makes a bridge of crystal, and feeds the whole town. One thing I’m still not sure about is why his father didn’t want him to know he was a fisherman.

The names in all these stories confused me too, no one ever really had traditional specific names.

A few themes I found interesting are:

The number 40, every story at some point had something happen for 40 days.

Birds: there are birds in every story, and in most story’s a pretty big part.

Jobs: the theme of occupations and your parents jobs also pops up in the stories.

(The beautiful fish that turns into a woman - Wikipedia) 

Week 3 Storytelling - The Wedding

I would say this was the wedding of the century, but that would be an understatement. This was the wedding of eternity. The wedding of the universe. There was never again a more important wedding. It was the first wedding, Adam and Eve’s that is.

 No celebrity wedding will ever come close to matching the icons that were at this special event. There were angels at this wedding, multiple at that. Every species of animal living on earth was in attendance. Not to mention the most important guest of all, God. This wedding set the stage for all other wedding to come.

The most memorable thing about this day was light. There was so much light all around. Also, joy. Everyone and everything there was full of joy that multiplied around the earth.  The animals that attended all added their own unique gifts to the ceremony. The birds chirped and flew in perfect symmetrical patters around the sky. While the grasshoppers jumped around and around placing leaves and shrubs to coat the ground. All of earth’s creatures came together to celebrate the beauty of Adam and Eve’s unity.

The day started early with the angels helping Eve get ready for the big day. The angels had been working hard on getting her outfit ready. They dressed her in casual elegant white cloths. This dress blended in with the elegance of the wedding and with the earth in which they shared it. These cloths’ flowed effortlessly with the wind and made Eve feel beautiful. The white symbolized Eve’s purity, as pure as the bright light that surrounded her. Eve was glowing from ear to ear, excited for the day to come.

Adam bathed in a nearby river that morning, to cleanse his body of any dirt or impurities. The doves had sown him a skirt of leaves for him to wear for the ceremony.  The earth was also a critical element to this wedding. There was greenery surrounding the whole wedding alter and intricate vines lining the archways of the isle. Flowers of all colors were represented at this ceremony; Rosebuds, sunflowers, daffodils and more. Tall willow trees created shade for the guests and added to the intimate ambiance.

The ceremony itself was grand as well. God officiated it and presented the values of all weddings to come. Once the ceremony ended Adam and Eve left as husband and wife. Their covenant of marriage could finally begin as God had planned all along.

(Adam and Eve Wedding Depiction - Wikipedia)

Authors Note: This story is based on the story of Adam and Eve. Nowhere in this story does it go into much depth about the surrounding of the wedding. The story does tell us that God, animals, and angels were in attendance. It also describes what God talk's about during the ceremony. I just though it was such an amazing event in history that it would be fun to try and imagine what that day was like.  

Bibliography: Adam and Eve, By. Louis Ginzberg, 1909. Link to online source 

Week 3 Reading Diary - Adam and Eve

Adam and Eve: By Louis Ginzberg

Here are just some notes I took while reading this story. Mostly of things that I found most interesting.

The idea that man was created from dust comes up over and over again. Man was created from the ground, and women were created from Adams rib bone.

Later on in the story it talks about the differences between man and women because of how they were created. It describes why women are much more complicated than men. This is mostly because they have to be designed in a way to bear children, they also mature intelligence wise sooner then men.

I a tree of good v.s evil has always ben interesting to me. I am interested in possibly writing a story about this tree. It might not have to many similarities to the biblical story, but I would try to make enough references to the original story so people would understand where it was coming from.

(Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden - Wikimedia)

I found it interesting that Adam was born as a 20yr old, not as a baby.

God made all the animals on earth in an hour. The hour after Adam was made. Adam named all the animals on earth and was truly gifted. After Adam helped name all the animals him and God planned the whole earth out. They decided where people would inhabit in the future, and what land would stay vacant.

I also thought it was interesting how Satan used to be an angel. It goes into how he was cast into the earth by God, and so it makes sense why we have always assumed Satan to be below.

Finally I think that the wedding of Adam and Eve is an interesting subject. I would be interested in writing a story about this wedding. This was probably the most important wedding that ever took place. It talks about how God and angels were there. I love wedding in general so this interests me.