Reading Notes: Italian Popular Tales, Part A

Italian Popular Tales Unit from the UN-Textbook
(http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/07/italian-language-of-animals.html)

Depiction of the eventual Pope and son

The story begins with a father whose son has been away studying at school for the past ten years, when he received a letter from the son's teacher claiming that he needed to take his son back as he could not teach him any more. Upon the son's return, his father set up a large feast to celebrate him even inviting many different powerful noble men from all across Italy. The noble men all gave speeches like in most ancient feasts, but once they were done on of them asked the son to tell him one thing that he had learned in his ten years of schooling. The son claimed to have learned the language of various animals including: dogs, frogs, and even birds. The whole crowd erupted in laughter at the answer and all left almost immediately. The father was mocked for being so proud while the son was made fun of for being a fool. The father became so enraged at this that he ordered two of his servants to go out and kill the son. After they did this they were supposed to bring back his heart, but they could not do it and instead decided to bring back a random dog's heart instead. After this the boy flees for a long time until he came across a rich treasurer's castle and asked to stay inside as he had been on the move for some time. Upon his arrival though a group of dogs came to gather outside the castle and as the son understood them he found out that a large group of assassins were coming to attack the castle that very night. The treasurer set up the guards to eliminate the assassins and was so grateful to the son that he offered his daughter's hand in marriage to him on the condition that he couldn't come back until a year and three days had passed. Next, the boy met the king's daughter and was able to help her finally sleep by calming the frogs in the nearby pond as she had thrown a cross into the fountain, so after removing she was saved and also offered to the son in marriage. The son finally left and went to Rome where he made three new friends along the road only to be followed by a flock of singing birds. The son finally interpreted what they were saying as they were trying to pick the new Pope and suddenly it landed on the son who shortly after became Pope. The newly-ordained Pope summoned all the people he had helped as well as his father, who instantly wept as he realized he was wrong, and they lived together in peace.

Week 13 Story: The Sky is Falling!

Swiper the Fox

Once upon a time, there was a small hen named Pat who was resting peacefully in her nest out in her home field when all of the sudden something shook her awake as it felt like something had fallen from above on her head.

"Oh my!" Pat squawked
"The sky is falling!"

And just like that Pat shot up and began to go throughout the forest looking for her friends as she had to find someone important to tell this life-altering news. Pat first went to her brother John who was a mighty rooster and he was perplexed by just how the sky could be falling, but tagged along as he was worried about his little sister. Next, the group found their friend Don the duck, who was out near the pond looking at lily pads, and hurried up to him to tell them about their predicament. Don agreed to help as he felt someone had to know about such serious news. Lastly, the group went out onto the pond to find the biggest of their friend Gina the goose who offered to ferry the birds back across the pond and take them on the fastest route to get to the king.

The party was moving along on the trail that Gina had showed them and were nearing the king's mighty castle, when they noticed a shadow shifting in the nearby brush. Gina ran up to the brush flapping her wings out wide and out popped the local forest trickster Swiper. He was a devious fox who would pick on all of the other animals of the woods, but the group was taken aback when he offered to help them out as he knew an even faster way to get to the king's castle. After agreeing they followed Swiper to a tunnel that he claimed led right into the castle, but everyone was skeptical.

"Swiper that's no tunnel!" Pat called out as she noticed what looked like multiple sets of fox eyes.

She knew that this was yet another one of his plots so they all went back forgetting all about the sky.

"Ah man!" Swiper cried out knowing that he had been caught.


Bibliography:
(http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/03/english-fairy-tales-henny-penny.html from the UN-Textbook)

Author's Notes:
Kept all of the original animals and introduction, but changed the names as they were all rather long and silly as they rhymed (ex: Henny-Penny). Also changed the ending as instead of having the fox successfully attack/trick the party besides the main character I had a familiar childhood ending where the devious fox was found out.

Reading Notes: English Fairy Tales, Part B

English Fairy Tales Unit from the UN-Textbook
(http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/03/myth-folklore-unit-english-fairy-tales.html)

Depiction of Henny-penny having the "sky fall down"

Before getting into the actual telling and plot of this story it is interesting to note that each of the characters have a sort of second name after their own that rhymed with their first name. For example. one of the main characters of this story is know as "Henny-penny," or "Cocky-locky," and I will omit the second name for ease of reading / referencing. To begin, Henny was going around in her local cornyard when suddenly she was hit on the head by something from above. This led Henny to call out that the sky was falling and that she needed to go to tell the king, so she set out to and on her way first met Cocky who was a rooster and after Henny had told him what she was going to do, he gladly joined along. Next, Henny and Cocky kept going along the path to the king when they encountered Ducky who followed Cocky's suit for after he heard about Henny's mission he too wanted to tag along. Then, the three continued along the path to the king when they encountered Goosey who did the same as the two prior and joined the party to tell the king that the sky was falling. The last animal the party encountered was Foxy who after being asked by the group the same line of questions, told them that they were all headed the wrong way to get to the king and offered to show the group the right way there. Foxy lead the group to a nearby cave and offered them to come through one by one and killed them each as they came down. This happened in the reverse order the animals joined the party until Cocky was bitten twice and Henny knew something was wrong so she ran home and never got to tell the king that the sky is falling.

Reading Notes: English Fairy Tales, Part A

English Fairy Tales Unit from the UN-Textbook
(http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/03/myth-folklore-unit-english-fairy-tales.html)

Visual of a skein

This unit begins with a woman making five pies in her kitchen with her daughter and when the mother took the all of the pies out of the oven she noticed that they all had been overcooked. Because of this, the pies all had too hard of crusts to eat, so the mother told her daughter to go and set the pies up on the nearby shelf so that they could go soft over time. The daughter instead decides that since the pies were going to eventually soften up then surely she could eat them now despite their hard crusts. After only a moment the daughter ate up all five pies with their hard crusts and it was not until dinner that the girl's mother called her to bring a pie as they likely had softened up by now. When the daughter went to go check the shelf that her mother told her to set each of the pies on, she looked and saw only the five plates that they were supposed to be on top of. She turned to her mother and lied to her saying that none of the pies had softened up yet to save herself. The mother decided she was going to have one of the pies regardless of the softness of the crust, and the daughter finally cracked telling the mother that she had in fact eaten all of the pies. The mother began to spin around and sing that her daughter had eaten the five pies. The king was heading down the street and overheard the singing only to ask her if he could marry her daughter. His only caveat was that she had to spin five skeins everyday or he would have her killed. The daughter did get to enjoy the high life until it came time to make the five skeins until an imp came to try and help, but was eventually banished with a simple rhyme.

Week 12 Story: Feline Fiddle

Depiction of Felix 

Long ago, their was a cat named Felix who wanted nothing more than to be able to woo his longtime crush Diamond. Felix paced around wondering how he could do this and had been practicing to serenade her, but every time he tried there was only a horrible scratching noise. Felix tried and tried to get his song down, but could not manage to hit a single note. He was devastated as he thought his plight was hopeless, for if he couldn't even learn a simple song, how could he ever win a perfect cat like Diamond. Felix went out to a nearby pond and began to look up to the stars to think about what he would do next. Suddenly, Felix noticed a star seeming to grow closer until it crashed down in the thicket across the pond. Felix hurried over to see the glowing object, and after pushing the brush aside saw a golden fiddle. He picked it up and felt a power rush over him and suddenly he felt light as air. Felix grabbed the accompanying bow and tried to play a few notes only to be shocked as he played the most beautiful ballad he had ever heard. Felix took off knowing he had to act fast and rushed over to Diamond's house. Felix positioned himself outside of her window and began to play the same stunning ballad that he felt perfectly showed how he felt for her. Soon after Diamond poked her head out of the window to try and find where this heavenly sound was coming from. She was floored that Felix had done all of this for her and ran out to give him a big hug. Felix was taken off guard at first and dropped the fiddle only to see it instantly disappear when it hit the ground again.

Bibliography:
(http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/04/nursery-rhymes-jingles.html from the UN-Textbook)

Author's Notes:
Extrapolated on the old nursery rhyme with the cat and the fiddle by creating characters and a plot. Also made the fiddle come to the cat rather than the cat just have the fiddle already. Also tied in the moon/space aspect for the violin's origin.

Reading Notes: Nursery Rhyme, Part B

Nursery Rhymes Unit from the UN-Textbook
(http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/04/nursery-rhymes-jingles.html)

Depiction of the cat with his fiddle

The main theme across these tellings is that they are all in a sort of sing song type of pattern as they are all defined as "rhymes," with certain rhyme schemes that differ between each of the stories. The first telling is a much shorter story than most of the others in this unit and revolves around the teller describing his son, John. His son had gone to bed, but left on his pants as well as only one of his shoes.

The next story has each of its verses begins with the phrase "Cock a doodle doo!" This was due to the main character of the story being a rooster calling out. The rooster starts out by explaining that his "dame," had lost her shoe as well as his master had lost his fiddling stick. The next verse describes that his dame does not know what to do with his master not being able to find his fiddling stick. The third verse repeats the first verse, but instead of the master losing his fiddling stick he instead found his fiddling stick. Then the dame begins to dance as the master has his fiddling stick and begins to play for the rooster and the dame. The final verse wrapped the story up with the dame still unable to find her shoe and left to bed unsure of what to do next to find her shoe.

The next story is a classic rhyme with many different characters quickly being introduced to many different wacky characters. This is also quite a short story as well and begins with a cat and his fiddle being introduced. Next, their is a cow who had jumped over the moon being introduced. Then, a small dog is introduced who laughed at all of the sites and chuckled to himself. Lastly, the story wraps up with the last characters being introduced as while all of these characters were being introduced a dish chased after a spoon.

Reading Notes: Nursery Rhymes, Part A

Nursery Rhymes Unit from the UN-Textbook
(http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/04/myth-folklore-unit-nursery-rhymes.html)

Depiction of Simple Simon

The main theme across these tellings is that they are all in a sort of sing song type of pattern as they are all defined as "rhymes," with certain rhyme schemes that differ between each of the stories. The first in this set is centered around two young children who were taken from their homes. These children rename anonymous in the story as per the speaker in this story. Both of the children were left out in the woods by their kidnappers and they remained there late into the night. They became sad as they realized their situation especially as the sun went down. After some time of crying, the two children "...lay down and died." After this a group of red robins came to spread strawberry leaves on the two children all throughout the day singing out about the "Poor babes in the wood!"

The next story is much shorter as it revolves around someone known as the Crooked Man who goes out and about encountering many different crooked objects and animals from a coin he finds on the road to the cat he purchased with that caught a similar mouse. After this whirlwind of crooked animal and objects the Crooked Man went back with his new friends to his crooked house.

The next story revolves around a character known only as Simple Simon. Simon begins by approaching a local pie man at a fair and asking him to let him have a taste of his pie. The pie man asked Simon for to show him that he has money to pay for it before letting him try his pies, but Simon tells the pie man that he does not have any money. So Simon went out to go fishing to make the money for some pie looking to catch a whale inside his mother's pail that was filled up all the water he had.

Week 11 Story: Igloo Spirits

Depiction of  one of the various spirit hybrids

Long ago there was a small village that was home to a simple Inuit tribe, who had one strange habit, when they would bury their dead they would do so by throwing them out into sea. This tradition had gone on for as long as all the village elders could remember or even remember hearing from their elders as this was the way of life for the tribe until one fateful night. There seemed to be a faint clicking in the distance, but no one stirred at first as the noise was so far away. The noise persisted though, where it at first only clicked every couple of minutes it grew to two minutes, then one minute. The noise grew louder each time as well until it almost became a sort of pounding and this had caused the whole village to wake up and go out to the nearby sheet of ice where they would fish. Underneath the sheet of ice they could see what seemed to be spirits in the form of various animals that also resembled many of the past tribe members that the current members remember taking out to the sea. Everyone in the tribe was overjoyed to see something so beautiful and to be reunited in a sense with all of the people that had lost over the many different years, but it felt like the spirits became more of a work of art rather than a free spirit so the tribe began to bury their dead in the snow and earth to cease the spirits, but some say if you go out onto a sheet of ice late enough you can still see the old Inuit spirits trapped under the ice.

Bibliography:
(http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/03/eskimo-folk-tales-papik-who-killed-his.html from the UN-Textbook)

Author's Notes:
Focused the story more on the spirits and not on the actual tribe members like in the original and had the passively end the story rather than the spirit coming back to kill one of the tribe members.

Reading Notes: Eskimo Folk Tales, Part B

Eskimo Folk Tales Unit from the UN-Textbook
(http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/03/myth-folklore-unit-eskimo-folk-tales.html)

Depiction of the beast spirit

The story begins with two men, Papik and the brother of his wife, Ailaq, who both are fisherman by trade and would always go out to hunt seal together. Every time the two went out for a hunt, Papik would not catch anything, while Ailaq managed to always catch a seal. Each time this happened, Papik grew more jealous of Ailaq until one day only Papik returned in absolute silence. Later that night, Ailaq's mother came and confronted Papik claiming that he had been the one who had killed her son. Papik denied it vehemently, but the old woman became almost delirious as shes began to threaten Papik that one day she will eat him alive as she believed that he had killed him. She went out to the nearby shore and covered herself in a large blanket before letting the tide come up over her so that she may pass away to become a ghost for the purpose of exacting revenge on Papik. Because of this Papik had decided to stop hunting as he was terrified of this threat until one day he went out on the ice to hunt only to be attacked by a large spirit like a bear. The spirit tears Papik to shreds then makes its way through the village for everyone to notice its the old mother based on the bear pelt nd human bones. This legend was passed down by those who wanted to tell a tale of forewarning of killing someone else without just cause.

Reading Notes: Eskimo Folk Tales, Part A

Eskimo Folk Tales Unit from the UN-Textbook
(http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/03/myth-folklore-unit-eskimo-folk-tales.html)

Depiction of men during the great flood

The story begins by explaining that the forefathers had told tales of how the world came to be back before the invention of writing even and that the tales their elders have told them since they were children were to be heeded. The creation story began with the Earth falling from the sky including the mountains and hills. It was only then that man came from the Earth being birthed from it as infants who had relied on the Earth's sustenance. No one knwos how man and woman came to be or how they aged, but they created clothing for these children and because of this grew in number rapidly. Now established the humans desired companionship and more specifically dogs. They went out with leashes and called to the dogs who all came hurrying to them, but after this the humans began to have children of their own and this is when they began to grow exponentially in population. These men and women knew not about death and all lived to be extremely old to the point of blindness and immobility. All the while, these men and women lived in the darkness as they had not ever seen the sun, for the only light they had was the water that they burned in their lamps inside their homes (water apparently burned and glowed in this ancient time). Although these humans did not die they were eventually killed by a great flood that washed all the way up to the tips of mountains in some places thus wiping out many of the humans. During all of this calamity to older women argued until one of them wished for both light and death as the humans had not experienced either yet and so it came to be like a wish almost. Now with both light and death the humans felt complete and could go out and experience this world in which they had come from.

Week 10 Story: "I'm hunting Wabus"

Wabus the Rabbit (story inspiration)

Long ago, in the lush forests of the Mississippi Valley, there was a cunning, yet extremely boisterous rabbit whom all the animals despised due to his arrogant nature. This rabbit's name was Wabus and he claimed to be the greatest healer in the entire forest, but that wasn't the claim that boiled all the other creature's blood. Wabus claimed to be the fastest runner in not only the forest, but the entire world. This was a much bigger deal for the animals than us humans as it was vital to the survival of a species, whether it be hunting down a meal for the night or running to save one's own life.
Among these rather upset animals was the mighty mountain lion known as Elmer.
Elmer swore to all the creatures that would listen that he would catch the "pesky Wabus," with his raw speed as he felt he was the fastest creature in the land himself, but seemed to have a bit of a biological advantage over the small hare that he despised.

Elmer set out for Wabus' wigwam that he had set up on one of the forest's largest hills so that he could see any potential predators and run off in time. With this in mind Elmer came up with the brilliant idea to sneak up on the wigwam late at night with his night vision, while Wabus slept and was vulnerable. Elmer lurked up to the wigwam with feet as light as the still night air until he was right up next to the wigwam's back door.

Elmer looked into the dark room and couldn't believe his luck, as there was Wabus sound asleep in his bed with his back turned to the big cat. Elmer gleefully pounced on the figure laying in bed and dug his claws right into its back with a triumphant roar. Elmer, proud of ridding himself of Wabus, was shocked out of his victory to the sound of an all familiar chuckle from below him. Wabus was poking out a hole he dug and pointing at what Elmer now realized was a decoy laying under Wabus' blankets and couldn't believe that he was so easily tricked.

Wabus popped back into the hole right as Elmer lunged for him, and to Elmer's surprise the hole was much deeper than the initial entrance conveyed and he fell snoot first into a surprisingly deep hole. Elmer raged and tried to claw up the dirt walls, but was only dragging more dirt down into the hole. In a final attempt to persuade Wabus to let him out Elmer tried to claim that he was merely trying to help Wabus with his medicinal work and claimed that he too was a medicine man that aspired to learn from the "Prolific Wabus."Wabus laughed to himself as he went away from the hole while Elmer threw a fit and brought back a large rock.

"Sorry 'Doc'," Wabus called down as he laughed to himself.

Wabus then slid the rock over the hole and left Elmer to think about coming after him again, while he hopped in bed with a carrot and a grin.


Bibliography:
(http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/mslakes-two-rabbit-stories.html from the UN-Textbook)

Author's Notes:
Initially the big cat hunting Wabus was a panther, which didn't make since at least to me, as someone who is from a town right on the Mississippi River in Illinois, so I changed it to a mountain lion. Also changed the plot by making it a bit more whimsical such as making Wabus act like Bugs Bunny (hence Elmer the mountain lion) as he was killed instantly by the panther in the original story as he was overconfident.

Reading Notes: Mississippi Valley and Great Plains, Part B

Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes unit from the UN-Textbook
(http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/mslakes-creation-chitimacha.html)

Depiction of the boisterous rabbit 

This story begins with a rabbit, known as Wabus, who was know for being a boaster, and wanted to open a medicine lodge so that everyone would think he was some kind of medicine man. So one day he and his wife were going around and found a perfect little hill in which they could potentially make a home and began constructing a wigwam up on the hilltop. He then created a path each way down from the hill so that he could see anyone who approached his newly built home. Upon finishing the wigwam, Wabus told his wife he was going to go out and dance, but instead circled the property and checking each individual path to see if anyone could have been watching him. Wabus found nothing during this search so he came back up to his wigwam and began his dance. Just as Wabus came back up to his home, Panther was lurking up the hill just after his check and hid nearby to watch Wabus and his wife's dance so that he may pounce when they least expect it. Wabus sang to his wife as he was going through and opening up his medicine bag and as if he knew that the Panther was nearby, he mentioned in his song that he was a good runner and that the Panther would inevitably be unable to catch him if given the chance. Wabus, feeling confident due to his new setup on the hill, told his wife he was going to go out and hunt, but when he went down the hill Panther pounced on him. Wabus turned and started going back up the hill, but Panther caught him in a flash and jeered that he thought that no one could catch him, but he was able to and asked "Now who is the fastest runner?" Before Wabus was able to crack back at Panther, he was eaten up whole despite being such a confident, little rabbit.

Reading Notes: Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes, Part A

Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes unit from the UN-Textbook
(http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/06/mslakes-creation-chitimacha.html)

Depiction of The Earth-Maker

The first tale in this unit covers the creation story where it begins with a being referred to as the "The Earth-Maker," who came to and noticed that all around him was nothing but a void. This caused much pain leading The Earth-maker to cry and then instantly took action by taking a small amount of matter from where he was sitting and threw it down from his place, but nothing seemed to grow on it and it just simply turning. The Earth-Maker tried to add grass by doing the same thing and taking it from where he sat and throwing it down onto his creation, but still it was not effective. Next, The Earth-Maker created a man, who was known as Tortoise, to be this place's first inhabitant that would coexist with the men he also created for this new planet. When The Earth-Maker sent Tortoise down to his creation he gave him only one task which was to "bring order into the world," as their were malicious spirits trying to destroy The Earth-Maker's delicate creation. He sent Tortoise down with only a knife, but Tortoise began to instead cause war, so after a short time The Earth-Maker sent the next creature down, which was the Hare who began having a philosophical struggle with "his grandmother," who was the mother of The Earth-Maker (his father) and pleaded that he wanted the humans to live forever like himself. Hare's grandmother explains that how can Hare make the humans live forever if The Earth-Maker could not while creating them, and Hare began to realize that without death that the humans would inevitably run out of resources and space on The Earth-Maker's creation. After seeing the death of the people on the creation, Hare accepted the way in which The Earth-Maker and went to the edge of this creation where the fires raged all around the edge.