Reading Diary B: Anderson Fairy Tales

(A beautiful graphic of The Little Mermaid.)

The second half of the unit tells the story of the Little Mermaid. The story is generally the same to the Disney movie with the exception that there is not a happily ever after ending. The ending in this story is quite sad and I was quite taken aback by how sad it was. Still a very great story though. The story is really long, so I will summarize the major parts of the story. In The Little Mermaid, the youngest mermaid on her fifteenth birthday is old enough to go up to shore and see what the earth looks like and the creatures on it. She sees that a prince in drowning and saves him. Although, he does not know that she saved him and she feel sad. The little mermaid than goes to the sea witch to turn her into an immortal being. Although becoming immortal comes with a cost. The little mermaid must lose her tongue and she will lose her fin and have legs, and sharp pain in her feet. Also, if the prince does not love her and marries someone else then she will die. Knowing all this, the little mermaid decides to become a human. The little mermaid meets the prince and he grows fond of her and remembers that she looks like the girl who saved his life. He still ends up marrying someone else, and the little mermaid dies. Although she is then in a spirit world were she had to a chance to obtain a immortal soul after three hundred years. The ending was so sad. The little mermaid saved the prince and she could not even tell him that or about how she felt about him. 

If you would like to read The Little Mermaid, click here.

Reading Diary A: Anderson Fairy Tales

(The Emperor's New Suit )

I really liked this story about the emperor and his suit. The story is about an emperor who loves to dress well and buys many clothes for himself. The emperor hears about two designers who have a new cloth that no one has worn before and is unique because it can only be seen by the owner who wears it. When the emperor meets the two designers, they show him the cloth, but the emperor does not want to say anything. So the emperor falsely says he can see the cloth. They then prepare to make a suit for him which he invisibly puts on and walks around naked for everyone to see. Everyone else sees that the emperor is naked, but does not dare to the emperor. I thought this was funny because the two swindlers are obviously tricksters and they were able to get over on the emperor. I really recommend this story. It is a pretty funny read. If you would like to read, just click the link above. 

Reading Diary A: Grimm unit

(illustration by Walter Crane)

For this week, I chose the reading unit Grimm. One of my favorite stories was about Clever Elsie. I liked this story because everyone thought that Clever Elsie was so clever, but I did not really agree. In the story, Clever Elsie's parents want to marry her off, but no man will have her unless she is smart. So a man by the name of Hans comes to court Clever Elsie. Hans decides if he want to marry Clever Elsie by having dinner with her and her family. At the start of dinner Clever Elsie's mother asks her to get some beer, but Clever Elsie never comes back up from getting the beer because she is crying. The reason why she is crying is because she thinks that an ax will kill her and Hans future son. So each person one by one comes down and asks Clever Elsie what is wrong and sit and cry with her until Hans is the last one at the dinner table. Hans comes down and sees all the commotion and decides he will marry Clever Elsie. The ending of the story I did not really understand, so in my storytelling this week I will probably change the ending.  

Grimm unit (read it!)

Reading Diary A: More English Fairy Tales

(Red fox.)

For this weeks reading I decided to finish reading the English Fairy tales. I really liked the firs set of stories, so I figured why not. Two of my favorite stories from the first half of the reading were Scrapefoot and The Old Witch. The first story is about the three little bears and a fox names Scrapefoot. There is a big bear, middle bear, and small bear. The three bears live in a castle where Scrapefoot  sneaks in. Just like the classic Three Little Bears, nothing is just right until Scrapefoot gets to whatever belongs to little bear. When the bears catch Scrapefoot sleeping in the little bears bed, they throw him out of the window. 

The second story is about two sisters who go to find their own fortune. When one of the girls is on her way to find money she encounters bread that has been baking, a cow that hasn't been milked, and a tree that has fruit that has not been picked all for seven years. She she helps each of them out. Finally, she meets a witch who allows her to be a servant for money, but tells her to never look up the chimney or something bad will happen. So there girl forgets and looks up the chimney and a bag of money falls down. So the girl leaves, but the witch is right behind looking for the girl. As she is running, the tree, cow, and the oven with which the bread was baked all helped to hide her whenever the witch got close. She eventually ran off with the money and got married and lived happily ever after. However, he sister got greedy and decided to do the same thing her sister did and steal from the witch. But her sister did not take the bread out of the oven, milk the cow, or pick fruit from the tree. So when it became time for her to hide, no one would help her. The witch found her and she was left to walk home empty handed. 

Reading Diary B: English Fairy Tales

My favorite story from the second half of the reading was "The Fox." This story is quite funny because it has an ending that is super hilarious. In this story, there is a women by the name of Lady Mary who finds a man by the name of Mr. Fox. They both agreed to get married, and that they would stay at his castle. Although, no one had seen Mr. Fox's castle, including Lady Mary's brothers. So one day Lady Mary found Mr. Fox's and she was troubled with what she found. In the house she found dead corpses of women he had previously wed. Disgusted an d frightened, Lady Mary goes to leave, but then she sees Mr. Fox and hides. She sees Mr. Fox dragging one of this victims to the room where he has killed his past wives. But before, Mr. Fox sees that the woman had large diamond ring on her finger. He impatiently cuts her hand off and it goes flying into Lady Mary's lap. When Mr. Fox cannot find the hand, he gives up and continues to drag the woman in the room. Lady Mary then rushes out of the house, and when she sees Mr. Fox on their day to wed, she looks very pale. She then tells him about a very bad dream about what happened in his castle. The whole time Mr. Fox denies he's ever done anything she dreamed, but then she pulls out the hand, and then Lady Mary's brothers kill Mr. Fox. This was a very scary story and I could totally see this being a show whenever I was reading it. One way I was thinking about possibly retelling this story was by changing the the characters and making Lady Mary the villain in the story and also her brothers are also in on it. 

Reading Diary A: English Fairy Tales

One story that stood out to me this week was "The Rose Tress." It seems like some of the stories I am interested in always have a trickster and fool. This story is about an evil stepmother who is jealous of her husbands first child from another woman. The reason why she is so jealous is because the daughter is very beautiful. One thing I liked about the description of the daughter is it was so descriptive that I could picture her in my head. I kind of pictured Snow White. The story is also very similar to that of Snow White, minus the fact the in this story the father is alive and well she has a brother. So one day the step mother pretends that she is a loving mother and wants to comb her beautiful daughters hair. However, she told her that she could not part her hair without some wood and and axe. The foolish daughter went and got the tools for her stepmother that ultimately led to her demise. The stepmother than cut out her liver and cooked it in soup that she gave to her husband (the girls father) and he ate it. The brother would not eat the soup though. Later her brother ran out of the house and buried his sister and cried over his sisters grave until his tears made it to the box. He continued to cry days later until his sister grew to be a beautiful rose tree. What I loved about the ending was the everyday the tree would sing about what happened to her, and there would be a bird listening. Then the bird sang the song to three millers and they created a milestone, a pair of shoes, and a gold watch and chain for the bird to carry back to the house where the girl died. In the end, the girl gets the last laugh when she tricks the evil stepmother, by giving her brother the red shoes, her father the gold chain and watch, and then when the stepmother thinks she is getting a gift, the bird drops the milestone on her. The irony of this story is just too great. I think there are many ways that I could retell this story. 

Reading Diary B: Myths and Legends of the Sioux

Out of all the stories in the second half of this reading, I think I was more fascinated with the ruthlessness of Unktomi in the story of him fooling the two widows. The story starts off with Unktomi finding some red plums on his walk through the forest. With the plums, Unktomi planned to trick two widows by enticing them with the red plums and watch their babies while they went out to find the plums. He also pretended to be their brother. While the two widows are out finding plums, Unktomi kills their babies and eats them in a soup. When the widows return empty handed, Unktomi tells them not check on the babies because he just put them to bed, and not to bother them until they're finished eating the soup that he cooked their babies in. When they realize what Unktomi has done, they try to kill him, he he crawls into a hole. A stranger tries to help them catch Unktomi, but the two widows end up in the hole and Unktomi escapes and traps them down in the hole and sets it on fire. I think if I were to retell this story, I would definitely change the ending. I am a sucker for karma, so I feel like Unktomi should face his demise. 

(Plum tree)

Sioux unit.

Reading Diary A: Myths and Legends of the Sioux

In this unit I thought the story of the lost wife was something I could write about this week. The story is about a woman who escapes an abusive marriage, and so she leaves her village. Upon leaving her village she meets a man and he leads her to a village of wolves. The man is the chief of the wolves and they help her stay alive for a year. During the time that woman is missing her family and husband are worried and have been looking for her. They find her and she eventually goes back with them. The husband also wants her to come back and live with him, but she refuses for awhile, but they reconcile in the end. I have so many ideas to twist this story some way. In this story there is the woman lives with wolves for year, and this made me thing what is she became one of them. Like a werewolf. Like maybe her meeting a new man, he introduces her to his family (wolves) and offers to turn her. Or she could be bitten and turned and not even know. There are so many ways I can twist this story! I would really recommend the first half of this unit. The stories are very insightful and I enjoyed reading them. 

(Girl surrounded by wolves)

Sioux unit.

Reading Diary A: Indian Fairy Tales

(The north wind attacking Shin-Ge-Bis)

I really enjoyed the story about Shin-Ge-Bis (I am going to call him Shin for short) and the North Wind. I thought it was cowardly for Shin's friends to leave him outside during winter by himself because they were scared of the North Wind. Luckily, Shin had a great attitude about defeating the North Wind. He was able to live for several moons (the Native American way of telling time) on his own. Shin was also able to catch fish even though the ground was frozen solid. The North Wind was not happy that Shin stuck around though, and devised a plan to get rid of him. The North Wind attempted to blow out Shin's fire and freeze him, but he ended up creating a snow covering on the place that Shin was staying to allow him to be warmer and Shin laughed at the foolish North Wind. The North Wind very upset at this point challenges Shin to come outside and battle with him. Shin comes outside and they tussle with each other until eventually Shin beats the North Wind. I thought this story was really cool. I really liked the bravery of Shin, and a possible storytelling post I could set out to tell is to make him a hero of some sort to save his family or village. I think that would be really cool. 

Here is the link to the Indian Fairy Tales.

Reading Diary B: Chinese Fairy Tales

(Chinese Pagoda)

The Maiden Who Was Stolen Away

The thing that captured my attention about this story was the picture of the huge pagoda. It is so beautiful. I can imagine that the sight from the top has got to be so amazing. I would love to go the China and go to the top of one someday and just look at the sights of China. In the picture above you can also see how beautiful the pagoda is. It's so colorful and full of life.

 What was interesting about this story was the the main female character (maiden). She was captured by an ogre who was posing as a boy, and he then tried to trick her into marrying him. When she said no, the ogre locked her up at the top of a pagoda. Each day he asked her if she would marry him, and each day she said no. One day the maiden was able to alert a bird that she was locked at the top of the pagoda and the bird went to her family. Her brother then killed the ogre and saved his sister, the maiden. A lot of people probably would have given up and just married the ogre, but she stuck with her decision and found enough courage to try to get away. 

Chinese Fairy Tales unit.

Reading Diary A: Chinese Fairy Tales

(Chinese leopard)

The Panther

This story is about a panther who eats a mother and her son, and then poses as the mother in order to eat the rest of her children. The children figure out that the panther has eaten their mother and brother and they are very frightened. They end up scaring the panther off, but are afraid for when the panther comes back because he will be mad. But then, a couple of people come along and help them keep away the panther for good. What I liked about this story was the defeat of the panther in the end. I thought the development of it was really cool and would love to retell it in a different way.   

Why Dog and Cat are Enemies

What I liked about this story was the quarrel between the cat and the dog came to be. It seems like many people get into arguments and they become enemies and they keep that animosity going. This also reminded me of the classic cartoon Ben and Jerry. It is crazy how something so small can make people enemies,  

The Favorite of Fortune and the Child of Ill Luck

The most interesting theme in this story is the loyalty that the wife and husband show to each other. In this story a prince's daughter is looking for a husband, but she finds a man that her father does not approve up because the man is poor, but has good luck. Although, she is still adamant about marrying the man, and so she does. When they become married, they both struggle to live and the husband goes away to seek his fortune. For eighteen years the husband is gone, and he is now an emperor. He also comes back for his wife who is only getting by with little money from her mother because her father has still disowned her. But when she sees her husband, she does not know it is him and he asks her would she marry someone else. The wife says no and that she will wait for her husband until she dies. Very happy with her answer he takes her and shares his great fortune.  

The Cave of the Beasts

The interesting thing about this story was the selfishness of the father. When the father goes to gather wood for his wife and seven daughters, he finds seven duck eggs. But he does not want to share the eggs with his daughters. The father gives the eggs to his wife and the daughters each come and ask for an egg, but the mother tells each daughter that if she gives each one an egg if they do not tell anyone. Later, the father is upset and decides to leave his daughter out in the woods for the fox and wolf to eat them. While the girls are out in the woods they find a cave that is filled with jewels, a fire to keep them warm, and a couple of beds. Not knowing the the cave belongs to the fox and wolf, the girls end up killing the fox and wolf by making a bigger fire when they find out that the fox and wolf are in the cave, After time goes by, the father misses his daughters and goes to find them. He then finds them in the cave with all the jewels and they then become wealthy. I thought the ending was lacking in karma. I believe the father should have not had a happy ending considering all that he did. I am thinking of creating a different ending if I retell this story.

Chinese Fairy Tales unit.

Reading Diary A: African Stories from Lang's Fairy Books

(The tricky jackal.)

This was a really cool half reading! I enjoyed literally all of the stories in the first half of the African stories reading. My favorite though was the beginning of the story. How it starts is with the episodes about Motikatika. The most interesting thing about this story is the plot twist at the end. The story starts off with a sick wife and her husband tries to nurse her back to health by bring her honey and water, but he has to make several trips before getting the right water. After this, the husband falls ill, and asks  his wife to make several trips to get water for him. On the final trip to get water, the wife gets water, but then a ogre pops out. The ogre tells the wife that since she has taken water from him, he will eat her child and she is the shave the sides of his head and put white beads around his neck so the ogre will know it is him. The wife also tell him to yell "Motikatika!" Although, the wife has a plan. She gathers all the children and shaves their heads and puts white beads around all of their necks. When the time comes, the ogre calls for Motikatika, but sees all the children who are all the same. The ogre then feels defeated because he knows he will be in trouble if he eats an innocent child. So the wife says she will send her son to the field the pick up some beans and the ogre shall find him there and eat him. Little does the wife know, the Motikatika persuades the father/husband to dress up like Motikatika and the father ends up getting eaten by the ogre. The ending blew my mind.  Mainly because of this last line: 

"It is only just that he should be eaten, and not I; for it was he, and not I, who sent you to fetch the water."

African Stories

Reading Diary A: Life of Buddha

(Prince Siddhartha and his encounters)

I really like the episodes about the encounters that Buddha had with life. What really interested me about these particular episodes in this storybook is that Prince Siddhartha's father tried to shelter him from the bad things in the world. The reason the King had done this is because Prince Siddhartha has lived a sheltered life of luxury and was not aware of the evil and bad things in the world. One day he finally leaves the palace after he is an adult. When Prince Siddhartha would go on his daily ride on his chariot, the God's responded with the Prince still seeing some of the bad things in the world. One of the first was old age. Prince Siddhartha learned that he would one day grow to be old and he became depressed and did not want to continue his ride on the chariot. Upon his other sighting the King again tried to shelter the Prince when he left the palace, but the God's revealed a sick person on the second sighting and a corpse to represent death during the third sighting. After the sighting the Prince was sad about these sightings and thought about them often even when the King tried to cheer him up. Prince Siddhartha then began to think about the ways that he could help the world not suffer from all that he had seen. 

Life of Buddha

Reading Diary B: Arabian Nights

(Disney's Aladdin with the lamp and genie)

I really am a sucker for stories about Disney movies. This was literally my childhood though, so I think am justified to be. Anyway, this story was interesting. A little different from the Disney movie with their being more than one genie, but the story generally follows the same theme. Aladdin is poor and he lives with his mother. Until one day as magician posing as Aladdin uncle tricks him into getting a magic lamp for him, but left Aladdin with a ring. Aladdin rubbed the ring and a genie appeared and was bound do make any wish that Aladdin commanded. So Aladdin asked for food and other things that he could sell so that him and his mother could eat. Shortly after Aladdin falls for the Sultan's daughter and retrieves the lamp so that he can pass himself off as prince by asking the genies to  build a palace. Aladdin marries the princess after almost being sneakily married off to another boy by the Sultan. The magician learns of Aladdin and plans to take his palace away from him while away. He does so and takes the palace to Africa. The Sultan learns of this and want Aladdin's head. Although, Aladdin bargains with the Sultan to allow him forty days to find the princess. When he does find her, the princess trick the magician and he end up dead. They then ask the genie to move the palace back to China. Little did Aladdin know that the magician has a younger brother who wanted to avenge his brothers death. The magicians brother disguised himself as a woman that everyone loved. The disguised magician went into the palace and attempted to trick the princess into  defeating Aladdin, but the genie warned them the magician brother was out for them. Aladdin found the brother of the magician and killed him and Aladdin and the princess lived happily ever after. 

Arabian Nights

Reading Diary A: Arabian Nights

(Queen Scheherazade by Sophie Anderson)

I really enjoyed the first half of this storybook! I love this writing style and it is something that I am considering for a theme for my portfolio if I decide to choose to do it. The first half of this reading tells a story about a Sultan who is a king and he is happily married, but then his wife deceives him and he kills her. Now the Sultan seemingly has serious trust issues and marries a new wife everyday, spends a night with her and than has her killed the next morning. This continues on until the grand-vizers daughter Scheherazade comes up with a plan to keep the Sultan from killing her. The grand-vizer is opposed of this because he does not want to kill his own daughter if her plan does not work. Although he eventually lets her marry the Sultan with hopes that he is not ordered to kill her the next day. When Sultan meets Scheherazade he feels she is the most beautiful woman he has every married. He also sees that she is sad and asks her what is wrong. Scheherazade then asked Sultan to let her sister sleep with them before she is to die, and he allows it. While the three of them are asleep, Scheherazade sister wakes her to tell her a story. The Sultan also wants to hear the story. Scheherazade then starts to tell a story about a genie and merchant. In this story the genies believes that the merchant has killed his son, and plans to kill the merchant. The merchant is given one year with his family and then he has to return to the genie. On this day, the merchant meets three old men, one with a hind and another one with two dogs. When the genie is getting ready to kill the merchant, the old man with the hind makes a deal with the genie that if his story is worthwhile then he will not kill the merchant. So then the old man and the hind begins to tell his story. But Scheherazade then tells Sultan and her sister that they have to wait until the next day to hear the story, and Scheherazade is spared and not killed to the relief of the grand-vizer. This theme continues on with a story happening within a story. 

Arabian Nights

Extra Reading Diary: Noah and the Ark

(Source)

For the Noah storybook I particularly liked the first three episodes about Noah and the Ark to After the Flood. As a young child I always found this story to be pretty cool. Noah and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth found grace within the Lord, and followed the words of the Lord when he asked them to make an ark to protect themselves from the impending flood. And so they followed the Lord's instructions to build an ark strong enough to withstand the flood. When they were done, Noah was to also gather two (one male and female) of every animal and bring them onto the ark. He also brought along his wife and his sons wives, and they were to stay on the Ark for forty days and forty nights. When the forty day and night passed, Noah sent out a bird to check and see if the land was dry. It was awhile before the bird returned. However the land was not dry, for the bird could not find dry land to place its feet. From there, Noah waited another seven days and released the bird. The bird came back with leaves. At last, they were able to leave to ark because the land was dry and not flooded with water. Noah also let all the animals off the ark so they could multiply. Then the Lord said that he would not cause any more floods to smite the earth of all that is evil.

Noah and the Ark 

Reading Diary B: Bible Women

(Bathsheba, by Gerome)

The stories of women in the bible are very intriguing. The story of Bathsheba was not one that I expected. When reading a little about what it was about and how it was love at first sight, I expected a different story than what I read. The story starts off with David who sees Bathsheba while she is bathing and instantly falls in love with her. The crazy thing is she is already married, and while she is married she bears the child of David. David realizes that he is wrong and tries to convince Uriah (Bathsheba's husband) to say that the child is his own, but he will not do it. So David has him killed, and then marries the widowed Bathsheba. Because of this though, David is punished and Bathsheba loses their first child, but they have another child names Solomon. Never read a love at first sight story quite like this, but I did find it pretty interesting. 

(Susannah and the Elders, 15th-century)

Yet another good chapter in this storybook is about Susannah. Susannah was bathing while two elder were watching her. The elder then walked up to her and attempted to rape her, but she refused them. When she had her trial everyone believed the words of the elders and sentenced Susannah to death, but the Lord head her cries and Daniel rose up to prove that the elder had lied. This story kind of reminded me how everyone always says to respect your elders and that they are always right and truthful. I do agree that I should respect my elders, but I do not think they are always truthful. They can be deceitful and lie just like anyone else. This story made me think of a time I watched a show about this singers mom saying a lot of bad things about her daughters husband that were not true, but because she was the elder no one objected her opinion.  

Bible Women

Reading Diary A: Bible Women

(Delilah and Samson, by Lucas Cranach)

For the first part of the reading I was most fascinated about the story about Delilah. The story is about a woman named Delilah who falls for a man named Samson. Although, she does not really fall for him. She tricks him into falling for her just for money. When the Philistines come for Samson, she let them cut his hair while he was sleeping at her knees. Delilah then let the Philistines take Samson, and they took his eyes out and shackled him to take him to the prison house. This story was interesting because Delilah was very tricky. She used a man to get money, and Samson fell for her false affection. I feel you see that happen a lot today. People use each other for money, or they are willing to turn someone over for money. One thing that comes to mind is when people kidnap someone for ransom, and demand large amounts of money for their return. 

(Abraham and Hagar, by Guercino)

Another story in this first series of reading that I like is the story of Hagar. She was the maid of Sarah and Abram. Sarah was not able to bear a child, so she handed over Hagar to Abram to bear his child. After Hagar had Abram's child, Sarah was jealous of Hagar and dealt with her harshly. Because of this Hagar fled with her son, but eventually returned. When Sarah was finally able to bear a child, she had Abram send Hagar and her child, Ishmael away with only bread and water. When they ran out of water Hagar cried for her and her son. The Lord heard Hagar's cries and gave her water, and they made it to another city wear they settled. This story can relate to many situations today. The most obvious being the when men find themselves in a love triangle and have children from more than one woman and sometimes there is jealousy there and the father ends up abandoning one child to be with the other. 

Bible Women

Reading Diary A: Adam and Eve

The Fall of Satan The storybook about Satan is pretty interesting. It may only be because one of my favorite shows is Supernatural and they put a different twist on the Fall of Satan but it still follows basically from the Bible. Basically Satan does not want to bow down to man, and he feels he is superior to man. Although, when God learns of this he is not happy with Satan. Satan feels that he should only worship God, but God told Satan that he had to pay homage to Adam (who was also created in the image of God), but he did not do that. Satan refused and he faced the wrath of God. Satan was released from Heaven and became a fallen angel and fell to earth. What was also crazy was that Satan even tried to challenge Adam by competing with him to know the names of the animals and Adam was still superior in his knowledge, but Satan still has too much pride to be gracious to Adam. Furthermore, when Satan did not take on the path of his brother Michael who was one of the first angels to bow before Adam. But I suppose it was because their were other angels who followed Satan. One question that is posed in Supernatural is weather angels prefer free will or following a leader, and many times the angels seem to prefer following, so I found that funny how Satan having his followers sort of correlated with the show.

(The Fall of Satan, by William Blake)

Eve I really liked the storybook of Eve because it follows the creation of Eve and how different she is from Adam. Eve is very different from Adam in the sense that Eve was created from the rib of Adam. Eve as a woman also has a different purpose than man. Women were created to be more mature than men, and also for childbearing. The differences between man and woman are night and day. What may placate and man will not for the woman. What also caught my attention was in the end because Eve brought sin into the world, women were garbs on their head to hide their shame, and they precede men at a funeral because Eve brought death into the world. Also another interesting part of the story is that God had created a wife for Adam well before Eve, but he was repulsed by her because of how she was created. When Eve was created, Adam immediately adored her because she was made from his bone. I found that be romantic, because you hear a lot of men today call their spouse or significant other "their rib." Lastly, the wedding of Adam and Eve made me think of traditional weddings. Their marriage was blessed by the Lord, and then after they danced to music with the angels. This is much like today's marriages where people get married in a church and then have a reception afterward to dance and enjoy family and friends.


(The Creation of Eve, by William Blake)

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