Reading Diary - Italian Tales

Italian Tales by Thomas Frederick Crane

Water and Salt - This was an interesting story. The king needs to kill one of his three children and he kills his daughter because she said she loved him as much as salt and water. The king thinks she is killed but instead she ends up in a magic forest and marries a prince. When they got married they invited 3 kings, one being her dad. She then shows him how bad it is to eat a meal without water and salt. I still don’t know if the king dies or not. 

The Man, the Serpent, and the Fox - I really liked this story. A hunter reluctantly frees a serpent because he promised to not eat him. The serpent tries to eat the hunter once he saves him, and the hunter is mad. They go through the forest asking other animals if the serpent has a right to eat the hunter. Finally they come to the fox. The fox tricks the serpent to go back to where he was stuck before the hunter let him out, and this time no one saves him. 

Melinda and the Monster - This was a great story. I read a story from last week that someone wrote about this story and I really like that I got to read the original. A father picks a rose for his youngest daughter and a monster comes and demands he die from picking his rose bush. The father has to bring his daughter to the monster or he will die. The father brings his daughter to the monster and she is treated well but scared of the monster. She eventually consents to marry the monster so her dad doesn't die. The monster turns into a handsome prince and explains that he was cursed by a witch. 

(The girl and the prince - Pixabay)

Reading Diary Continued - Russian Folktales

Russian Folktales - By. W.R.S. Ralston

The Soldier and the Vampire - I liked this story a lot. It was very interesting and exciting. A soldier goes to a warlocks house after he gets back from the army. They both go to a wedding and the warlock drinks the wife and husbands blood and kills them. He then boasts to the soldier to their way back home about how to bring them back to life and the only way to kill a warlock. The soldier listens carefully but doesn’t say anything. He then kills the warlock, saves the husband and wife and gets the towns people to help him burn the warlock so he stays dead. It ends happy.

The Witch Girl : This was an interesting story, I found it a bit confusing. Death was suppose to come to a family in the night and place them all in coffins. Cossack came and wanted to stay with the family but they told him about how death was coming. He stayed up all night and when the witch came to kill the family he cut off her arm and threw her out the window. The next morning one of the girls of the family had a wounded arm and they drowned this girl because she was the witch. 

(The Witch of Death - Wikipedia)

The Two Friends: I thought this story was very cleaver. Two best friends promise to invite the other to their wedding even if they are dead. One friend died and the groom goes to the friends grave stone on the day of his wedding. The dead friend comes out of his grave and insists on having a drink with the groom. They have 3 drinks and for each drink 100 years passes. The groom wakes up in a world he is unfamiliar with and no wife.

Reading Diary - Russian Folktales

Russian Folktales - By. W.R.S. Ralston

Dead Mother - This was a very very sad story. A mother dies while giving birth and the husband is so very sad. The baby cries all the time and no one can get her to stop. The king worries that the baby will not have milk to drink because she no longer has a mother. They find out someone has been coming in the middle of the night and calming the baby. The guards stay up and see the dead mother come in and feed the baby. One night the mother comes in but then immediately leaves, the next morning thh baby is dead. 

Friday - A lady dis-honored mother Friday. So Mother Friday came and put dust in the lady's eyes so she could not see. The lady begged mother Friday for forgiveness and promised to never dishonor her again. 

Wednesday - This story was interesting. Wednesday comes to help a women do her daily chores. But the women is very frightened that Wednesday came to help her and she runs to her neighbors to get advice. The lady is able to get Wednesday out of her house and puts a cross over is so Wednesday cannot come back in. 

(The cottage Mother Wednesday came into - Pixabay)

The Metamorphosis of the Dnieper, the Volga, and the Dvina - I found this story to be confusing. I'm honestly not sure what was going on. These three people go out for three years in search for good luck. The two girls get swept up by the river and the boy goes down the river to try and find them. 

Reading Diary Cont - English Fairy Tales

English Fairy Tales - By. Joseph Jacobs

Fairy Ointment: This was a cute story. I found it a bit confusing in the beginning, but I really liked the end. I like the idea of a fairly ointment that you can put on someones eyes and make them see something different. In this case the ointment made people not see or be able to see the stealing fairy. I would consider writing a story where the ointment allows people to see something good, instead of it being a bad thing. I think of fairy's as good creatures and not bad. 

(The Fairy Spreading the Ointment - Wikimedia)

Mr.Fox: I really liked this story also. I like that there was suspense and drama, but that the bad guy dies in the end. Lady Mary is a great character, she is so strong and I love how she waits till the breakfast to sign their marriage contract to tell everyone how horrible Mr.Fox is so that he can really suffer. Mr.Fox’s house seems like a terrible place! It was described really well and I had such a vivid picture of the scene. 

Johnny Cake: This is another one of those stories where a little part of it gets added on and on as the story goes. I still don’t really like this story style, I tend to get bored and stark skimming. I just don’t find it very exciting of a story. I liked the beginning of the story though when the little boy lets the Johnny cake out of the oven and he ran away.

Reading Diary - English Fairy Tales

English Fairy Tales By Joseph Jacobs

Tom Tit Tot: This was an odd story. I didn’t fully understand it all to be honest. It had a lot of things going on though which made it interesting. The pictures were really creepy, I would have never pictured the characters to look like that unless I saw those pictures of them. I thought it was kinda a depressing story, the whole story is about a girl trying to make these things so her head doesn’t get cut off by her husband. 

The Three Little Pigs: This was a very cute story. I remember the first part of the story very well from my childhood, but the sending half of the story was really fun for me to read. I like that the third smart little pig continues to trick the bad wolf when he still tries to kill the pig. The pig wins in the end and out smarts the wolf each time. When the wolf tries to boil the pig the water actually boils him and the pig eats the wolf. 

(The Three Little Pigs - YouTube)

The Old Woman and Her Pig: This story was very comical. It made me laugh. I have to admit that I sometimes get bored with these stories though, they drag on for too long sometimes. It is an interesting story style repeating and adding to the story each paragraph. I like the end the best when each part finally comes together and ties back to the beginning. 

Reading Diary - Alice In Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland, By. Lewis Carroll (1865)

Down the Rabbit-Hole: This was great story. I remember this scene of the movie very well from my childhood. I like the detail that I got to read about in the book though. I like how Alice while going down the hole try’s to think about what she had learned in school that might possible help her measure how far she had fallen. I also like her inner struggle with listening to herself and thinking about what she has learned and what others might advise her to do. I love the concept of this liquid making her small, and the cake making her really tall. This could be an interesting concept to apply in my own stories. I could also write about her getting into he garden finally and what happened while she is in there.

(Alice Grows - Wikipedia)

Advice from a Caterpillar: I also remember the slightly annoying Caterpillar from the movie, I can picture him smoking his hooka. Its fun for me to read these stories because I can picture them in my mind so vividly. I also remember the “who are you” question that caterpillar always asks Alice. She finally gets back to her normal height in this story, after getting even more distorted. She learns that she has to eat tiny tiny bits of the mushroom to balance out her size perfectly. She gets mistaken for a serpent because she grows too much and her nick gets very long. The illustration for this part of the story is great.

Reading Diary Continued - Myths of the Cherokee

Myths of the Cherokee - By James Mooney

The Ball Game of the Birds and Animals: The animals were very confident that they could beat the birds, and the birds were a little nervous themselves. The birds even took in some of the small animals that the big animals wouldn’t let on their team. The birds made these animals wings so that they could be on their team. The bird team wins the game, and the animals didn’t even have a chance to touch the ball because it was up int he air the whole time.

(Squirrel with wings - Wikipedia)

The Owl Gets Married: Im not quite sure the purpose of this story. A woman marries a man who she thinks will be a good hunter. He turns out to not be a good hunter so she follows him one day. She finds out that her husband turns into an owl, and that he scares off all the fish. She kicks the man/owl out of her house and the owl plucks away all his flesh. 

The Huhu Gets Married: I don’t know what a Huhu is but this was another interesting story. This has a similar plot to the story above. The wife wants a good husband who can hunt, and she marries this man who turns out to be a Huhu. Once she finds out what he is she kicks him out. 

The Snake Boy: A grandmother loves her grandson a lot. One night he turns into a scary snake and everyone is afraid of him. The grandmother goes after the snake because she loves her grandson so much and lives in the river with him.

The Snake Man: This story a man eats a squirrel and turns into a snake. There is a legend that this would happen, but the man did not believe this legend and continued to eat the squirrel. This goes to show that people should believe legends. 

Reading Diary - Myths of the Cherokee

Myths of the Cherokee - By. James Mooney (1900)

I am cherokee so I am very interested in reading some of their stories.

How the World Was Made:  This story starts off very different then the creation story, but then ends with a lot of similarities to the creation story. It starts with a beetle breaking up the ocean ground and bringing the dirt to the surface, creating land. But the land was soft and not hard. There are lots of mountains in the cherokee land. Trees, animals and plant are very important to them. 

The Journey to the Sunrise: This was an interesting story. It tells more about different tribes then finding the sun. One tribe they came across a man died and the wife was buried with her husband to die too, i though this was a very disturbing custom. They never were able to touch the sun, and they spent their whole lives trying to get there. But they did learn lot from all the different tribes.

Tobacco: I never really though about people in the past having a tobacco addiction, but this story is about this. A woman is even about to die because the tobacco is taken and she is having withdraws. Many animals tried to go get the plant, but they all failed. One small hummingbird wanted to try and everyone doubted him, but he was so quick and swift that he snuck by and got the tobacco. This is another lesson, to not underestimate people. 

Strawberries: This as a sweet story. A lady leaves her husband and intends to not come back. But her husband follows her. Many fruits and berries are placed in front of the woman but she never stops to eat them. Then she sees ripe red strawberries, these were the first to ever be seen. She then stops to eat the strawberries and remembers her husband and decides to run back home and is met happily by him. 

(The first strawberries found - Free stock photos)

Reading Diary - Native American Marriage Tales unit Continued

Native American Marriage Tales Unit: by. Stith Thompson 1929

The Dog Husband: A lady has a husband who is a dog but also changes into a human. They have children together and the wives family is really mad and kills her husband. The wife ends up having 5 dog babies, but later find out they can turn into humans also. She makes them stay in human form for the rest of their lives and they all live happily ever after.

The Youth Who Joined the Deer;

This was a very interesting story. I likes it a lot. I did not like the part about the hunter having 3 wives, and just leaving his other 2 wives even thighs he had a child with one of them. But I like the aspect of a person also being an animal, and killing the animal and bringing him back to life. I think of the idea of using all the parts of an animal and not letting anything go to waste.  After a deer is killed his bones are thrown back into the river and the deer comes back to life and changes into a human. I thought thes was just a very creative story. 

(Deer Bones - Wikimedia)

The Rolling Head:

This was a very very weird story. The wife goes swimming with a snake while her husband goes and hunts every day. The husband finally watches his wife when he leaves and sees her with he snake and kills the sale and his wife. he then feeds his wife to his children. The wives head starts align to the children and they get scared. Many other animals die and then the father gets killed by a lion at the end too. 

Reading Diary - Native American Marriage Tales unit

Native American Marriage Tales Unit By: Stith Thompson 1929

The Piqued Buffalo-Wife: There was a lot going on in this story. It has the themes of family and being good to your family. A father should always be able to identify his own family, especially his children. A husband also needs to treat his wife well or else she might leave or be taken away from him.

The Eagle and the Whale Husband: This teaches the lesson that marriage is a 2 way street. Both have to be willing and active parties in order for it to work. These 2 girls married animals and they both didn't treat them well. They tied them up and didn't love and nurture their wife. These girls eventually found ways to escape and run away.

Common theme of humans marrying animals.

The Fox Woman: This was a very odd story. A fox turns into a pretty lady and walks into a hunters house and tells him she is his wife. The hunter takes her to be his wife because she is so beautiful. The lady smells like a fox and the hunter notices. After this, the lady turns back into a fox and runs away forever.

The Woman Stolen by Killer Whales: This was a very cute story. The woman gets taken by killer whales because her and her husband caught their friend. The husband runs after her determined to save her. He makes friends with the sharks who help him out a lot, and he saves his wife. The Shark fights the killer whales so that the woman is set fee. It was odd because these water animals don't seem to be in water at all during this story.

(The Killer Whale - Pixabay)

Reading Diary Week 7 Continued - Congo Unit

Congo Unit By R.E. Dennett

General themes: trickery, preparing food, hunger, animals. The dominant predatory animal gets tricked and killed by an animal lower on the food chain.

The turtle and the man - This story has a lot of animals deaths. It was a fairly graphic story. The turtle tricks the OX and Fox into helping him, but then he doesn't leave then with any food. The Turtle kills the OX and eats him. The fox tricks the turtle back and bites his head off when he gets close. The Fox then eats the turtle.

The Antelope and the leopard - The antelope makes a bet with the leopard that he can find him, and if he does find him that the leopard has to die. The Antelope finds the leopard easily, but the leopard tries to trick the antelope. The antelope changes into a beautiful woman and tricks the leopard into killing his other 4 wives and himself. So the antelope kills the leopard in the end, as well as his family.

The Gazelle and leopard - The gazelle eats all of the leopards food. Then the Gazelle plays drums and tricks the leopard to come dance. They then ambush Leopard and kill him.

(Leopard and Gazelle in the wild - YouTube)

The three brothers - I really liked this story, but it ended so abruptly! I might write a second part to this story and come up with a real ending. How this story ending is with the 3 brothers being told not to kill the intruder but to invite her inside because its their mother. Will they end up listening to the advice ?

Reading Diary Week 7 - Congo Unit

Stories form Congo, By R.E. Dennett

Common themes of these stories - Dreams, wives, hunger, food

How Wife's Restored Their Husband - This was an odd story, It wasn't one of my favorites. I think  I just though the weirdest part was about the three wives. In the end they restore the husband, and he eats from one of the wives bowls. At the end of the story it makes a note that it would have been better if he ate all three of the wives food in one bowl.

How Gazelle Got Married - This story has a big theme of names. I can see names being a big part of the culture in Congo possible, I like this theme. Whatever animal finds out the names of the 2 daughter gets to marry them.

Vanishing Wife - I liked this story a lot. This story starts in a dream, and that dream then comes true. A woman and house appear and it eventually becomes his wife. Her only request is that he brings her a fish every day with its head cut off. One day he doest cut off the fish's head and his wife and house vanish forever.

(Man with his fish - Wikipedia)

Another Vanishing Wife - I really liked this story also. It has a similar story line to the original, but it is definitely different also. I might write my own version on a "vanishing wife" story. I though they were really interesting. The character in this story kept wanting to please his people, even though they were never nice to him. He focuses on this more than pleasing his wife who has always been very supporting of him. She ends up vanishing and the house too.

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)

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)

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)