Week 11 Storytelling: Banishment

Banishment

Red walked back to her tent, letting her mind wander. She was having the worst possible day and was sure that no one was going to understand. "I can't believe he has just ended things with me. I thought everything was going so wonderfully." She was, of course, talking about the town's best hunter that she had been with for nearly the past year. They had been in a very serious relationship and she thought that she had found her "one," her soul mate. He, however, apparently did not feel the same way. She had met him that morning around a campfire from the previous night where their tribe dwelt and he had broken the new to her. She left, heartbroken, to wonder what she would become now. For such a planner, this was not something she could have ever prepared for.

At first, Red felt unbearable sadness, However, it later turned to pure anger. She wanted revenge on the man that she had thought that she had been in love with for breaking her heart. Now the big question of the day was how she was going to get it. She continued on to her home, letting her mind wander yet again. This was a promise she made to herself that she was going to keep. He was going to feel at some point the pain that she felt in this moment.

A few years later, Red heard the news running through the village. The man whom she had thought was the love of her life at one point had just married and they were expecting children very soon. She remembered the promise she had made to herself the day he broke her heart and knew immediately what she had to do. She set out to the tent that she knew the two of them had been sharing from tribal gossip.

Upon arrival, Red was shocked to see that the woman was there by herself with her unborn children inside of her. Without hesitating and before she could change her mind, Red attacked. She slit the woman's throat and killed her in one fell swoop. For a moment, she was overcome with grief and wanted to at least help the children she knew were inside. She threw one behind a curtain so she knew he'd be warm and the other she put into a spring so that he at least wouldn't go thirsty. Figuring she had done her good deed for the day, she propped the now dead woman up so it would look as if she still was alive when her husband came home and fled, wanting to never be seen here again but to know that she had gotten the revenge she had been after for the past years.

The type of curtain that the Red covered one of the unborn 

children in for warmth. Source: Pixabay

Author's Note

I based this story off of the tale entitled Lodge-Boy and Thrown-Away from the second half of the Native American Hero Tales unit. While the piece in it's original version was interesting to read and did a good job of relaying the story, I couldn't help but feel as if there was something that was missing. I wanted to know why the Red-Woman was so hateful toward the man and his wife that he would kill the woman and then throw the newborn children around in such a violent way. For that reason, I decided to give this story a little bit more a background so that the Red-Woman and her horrible hatred could be better understood. I also thought it would be fitting to write the story from the woman's perspective to make it seem more genuine and authentic as opposed to someone simply trying to make her out to be the bad guy in the situation. 

Bibliography

Stith Thompson's Lodge-Boy and Thrown-Away

Week 10 Storytelling: The Buffalo-Man

The Buffalo-Man

There once was a young hunter who went out to find himself a wife. However, he identified more with the buffalo than he did his fellow humans and decided to mate with one of them instead. Finding one that pleased him, he stayed with her and they had a son after the right time had passed. However, the hunter was greatly ashamed of what he had done and decided not to stay in his son's life. He fled and returned to his old life.

Years later, the young buffalo son greatly desired to meet his father and set out to find them. He sat and observed everyone coming through the village, trying to pick out who he belonged to. Many men came and went, but he did not find any that seemed as if they could be his father. Then, a man passed through on his was to the market that caught the young buffalo's attention. He wasn't sure why he of all people seemed like a possibility, but he pursued him anyway. As he approached, the young hunter had a look of sudden recognition come over his face and realized that it was his son. He was immediately overcome with joy and knew immediately he could no longer not be present in his son's life. However, when he announced this, his son's buffalo community wasn't so sure that he deserved such privilege. How do we know he's going to be genuine this time, they questioned. As a result, they decided to test the man.

As a test, they put the young buffalo in the herd with all of his friends and made the father guess which one belonged to him. His son was desperate for his father to be correct so he had small signals that he used to alert the man, allowing him to accurately identify which buffalo was his son. The buffalo weren't convinced however, and made him try again. This went on for a while until the man got confused and suddenly picked the wrong buffalo as his son. He knew immediately that he had messed up because he saw a young buffalo's face fall instantly and knew that that was his son instead of the one that he had picked.

Once the test was over, the buffalo royalty met and made a decision. They ultimately decided that the man could stay with his son because they had pity on him, but there was going to be a consequence for his error in his ways. They decided that he would be allowed to stay, but that he must also become a buffalo to prove his loyalty to the herd. The man hesitated but accepted because of the love he had found for his son recently. That wasn't something he was willing to give up. Instantly, the man took on his buffalo form and headed off into the field to join his new family and start this new life that was now laid out in front of him.

The hunter turned into a buffalo to pass the rest of his life.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Author's Note

I rewrote this piece based on The Piqued Buffalo-Wife by Stith Thompson. I liked the way the story unfolded but I decided that I wanted to change the ending a little bit by having the family rain together in buffalo form. I kept most of the rest of the story the same but did change the was that it was worded and cut down some of the elaborate details to make it more of a short story.

Week 9 Story: Where the Monkey King Came From

Where the Monkey King Came From

The great monkey that was found in the East would go

on to be declared King of all creatures around him.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

A long time ago in a remote land in the East, there was a desolate stretch of land that bore no life. There was but a wide open space that nothing inhabited. That is, until one day when a brave adventurer found an old egg just lying in the middle of the landscape. Confused and alarmed because of the rarity of what had just happened, he searched for the mother of the egg that would never be found. After searching for quite a while, the villager decided that it was of no use and headed back to his home. He decided to leave the egg in a lush green forested area, convincing himself that that was far better than it being in the open by itself.

A few weeks after the egg had been moved, it began to hatch one day. Emerging from it was a monkey unlike anything else that was typically found in the particular region. The monkey looked rather ordinary but it had somehow seemed to inhabit some great kind of magical powers that set it aside from anything else in existence. In fact, the monkey was so powerful and advanced that it was running and doing mature tasks for a monkey just moments after it was born. To anyone who saw this taking place, they knew it was something special. All the other creatures, in fact, saw him and were so amazed at what was taking place that they deemed him their great king and put him in charge of the whole forest. With great joy, the young monkey that had just been declared king of all creatures around him decided that he was going to do whatever it took to be the greatest master that they had ever seen in this part of the world. Little did he know, this promise would be incredibly difficult to keep and he would end up going to unbelievable lengths to try and keep his word to his people. 

Author's Notes

I based this story off of the piece, Handsome King of the Apes, which is the first story in the Monkey King unit. I decided to write this story in a way that would give the King more of a background of where he came from and why he was so set apart from everyone else around him. I really spent the majority of the rewrite time focusing on the egg itself and where it came from since that is the thing that I had said I wanted to know more about in my reading notes. I also added an aspect of adventure to the piece and changed it up just a little bit to where it is more of a preface for the story collection as a whole.

Week 8 Reading and Writing

It's crazy to think that this semester is already almost half way done. In fact, we're coming up on fall break which serves as the official marker of the end of the first half of the term. Through the 8 week of course work that I have done for this course thus far, I think that my favorite reading section is from the Noah collection that I read in one of the earlier weeks of the semester. I particularly enjoyed this one because of the new perspective it put on a story I had heard numerous times in scripture and in church, having grown up in a Christian family. I also particularly enjoyed this segment of the reading because it gave me an idea for one of the stories that I want to add to my story book collection in the second half of the semester as I continue to work on completing that. I'm really excited to continue working on my semester project and to see where that leads me in the coming
couple of months.

With 19 hours, this is how much reading it feels like I have assigned nightly

in all of my classes combined. Source: Pixabay

Something that has been a little bit daunting for me thus far is the time management aspect of this course, especially in regards to the Tuesday and Wednesday reading notes assignments. There have definitely been a couple of weeks that I had a tough time completing everything in what I saw as a timely manner, also somewhat in part to the fact that I am enrolled in 19 hours and it feels like there are constantly a million things that need my attention. I'm not entirely sure how to fix this for the second half of the semester but I'm just going to keep on keeping on and try to stay on top of the readings. Maybe I could even try and use the end of the previous week to read the first few sections of material for the next week to get a head start on this post that seems to take so much time every week. I want to figure out how to be more efficient in this aspect because although the readings are great and I feel that my notes are very thorough, I also feel that I only use a very small portion of the notes that I do take in recreating my own story each week for Thursday's assignment.

Week 7 Story: A Dragon's Tale

Yoto the dragon looked over the village and watched the people run in terror. Seeing the disarray and the chaos that took place beneath him, he was pleased with himself. That'll show him, he thought to himself. He thought back on all the villagers that had journeyed up to his cave, tried to slay him, and then left and continued on with their lives like there was no issue at hand. He didn't understand how people could be so heartless. After all, he was the dragon. Wasn't he supposed to be the cruel and terrifying one?

Yoto the dragon, in all of his glory. Source: Public Domain Pictures

It had all started when a villager named Yamato came to his home and tried to force the dragon out. He recalled how the man had been so loud and overwhelmingly obnoxious, clanging his gear and shouting that he was here to take over and that the dragon's reign was to be no more. Yoto didn't even know what that was supposed to mean. Outraged, he flared his nostrils and began to snarl as he went around the corner to inform his unwanted visitor that he was not going anywhere unless it was on his own accord. It ultimately ended in him having to breathe a little bit of fire to show the village who was boss, sending the man running back to his home to proclaim how dangerous and terrible the dragon was. That was what Yoto hated most of all. It was after that encounter that he decided that if that was what everyone expected from him, then that was just what he would have to live up to.

Dismayed to be back in the moment, he continued to look on at the village. People were still running and things were still burning, but he suddenly didn't feel so bad about it. With a new mission, he made his way to the palace to determine to fate of all who inhabited it. This'll show them who's boss and what it's like to always have intruders, he thought to himself as he made the final strides into he palace to change the fate of the village forever.

Author's Note

When I was reading this piece, I felt like the dragon was made out to be this terrible creature but not given a chance to tell his side of the story. I wanted to fix that with my own story. I changed the perspective to that of the dragon and allowed him to explain why he was so angry all the time, resulting in the piece above.

Bibliography

E.W. Champney and F. Champney's The Labors of Yamato: The Dragon

Week 6 Storytelling: A Pet For Keeps

A Pet for Keeps

There once was a young named Michael. Growing up, his parents had given him everything he could have ever wanted, except for one thing. He had never been allowed to have a pet, no matter how much he begged for one. Dogs, cats, snakes, birds, and pretty much any creature was automatically ruled out anytime he tried to bring it up. Feeling particularly rebellious one day after he had just moved out of his family's home, he decided he was going to become a pet owner once and for all. But he didn't want just any pet; he wanted one that was unique and that had something out of the ordinary to offer him. With that in mind, he set out to find the perfect pet for him. 

The parrot that Michael picked out to be his pet was brilliantly

colored. Source: Pixabay

Shortly into his journey, Michael stumbled upon a pet store that seemed promising called Critter's: Exotic Pets and More. Exotic was ordinary, he thought to himself. He went in and was immediately drawn to a brilliantly colored bird in the corner, one that squawked in such a way as if he were actually saying something and not just making useless noises. This is the pet for me, he thought and he went to the cashier to take his new friend home.

Once arriving back at his house, Michael began to play around with the parrot, seeing what he could get it to do. Eventually, the bird had had enough of the useless phrases that Michael wanted him to repeat. The parrot knew he had to do something so he made a promise to Michael. He explained that he was not an ordinary parrot, but one with great wisdom and greater capabilities because of it that simply could not go to waste. Having said this, the parrot insisted that Michael allow him to use his potential. He explained that he could keep all annoyances from pestering him because of his crazy story telling capabilities. There were some people that Michael found generally annoying yet saw often so this sounded like a wonderful trade. Without any hesitation, the two made a deal an Michael left the parrot alone, excited about the service the bird would soon be doing him. 

Bibliography

Ziya'al-Din Nakhshabi's The Tales of a Parrot

Author's Note

I decided to use this story to retell the story of Miemun and Khojisten in a more modern way. I made this decision because I thought it would be fun to think about why a prince, or even a boy with a lot of privileges, would want a parrot in the first place. I ended up changing it from a market to the pet store but also kept the parrot's capabilities in my version of the story from what he could do in the original. 

Week 5 Story Telling: The Og's Flood

The Og's Flood

The Og looked on at the ark, wondering what he had done to deserve to not be allowed on the boat with everyone else. He saw the giraffes, elephants, dogs, cats, snakes, and every other creature on the earth. They were all dry and seemed to be happy, which irritated him greatly. He had tried to get on the boat, had tried to live with the rest of them, but he had not been allowed in. Noah, however, had had other plans. He insisted that the Og had to stay out in the waters, claiming that he was too big to fit in the ark. He didn't know who gave Noah the right to make decisions like this, but he didn't like it. He vowed to spend the rest of the 40 days and nights of the flood making his life and everyone else's on the boat miserable.

A representation of the flood waters that the Og endured

while everyone was on the ark. Source: Wikimedia Commons

As soon as the flood began and the waters started to rise, the Og knew what he had to do. He was determined to step on the ark and crush it and everyone inside. He thought this plan was an indestructible one. After all, he was the largest being on earth and he had more power than anyone. However, once the floods began and the waters got even stronger, he realized that his strategies weren't completely fool proof. Every time that he lifted his powerful hoof to strike the boat, the waves caught him off guard and made it impossible for him to accurately hit the ark. He didn't let this sway him just yet. He had 40 days, after all. He pressed on for each of those days and vowed to hit his mark.
Despite the Og's greatest efforts, when the waters began to recede, he saw that the ark was still thriving and that everyone on board was perfectly fine. He was overcome with jealousy once again. Noticing that the waters were much lower now, the Og took off into the distance and vowed to come up with a better plan. He was going to get revenge for how miserable he had been the past days, he just had to figure out how.

Author's Note

I modeled this after the Noah story from the Folklore of the Holy Land collection. It's original form just briefly mentioned the Og and the fact that he wanted to destroy the ark and everyone in this, but it didn't really give a reason for why he felt that way. With that in mind, I wanted to give the Og a voice so I decided to make a more developed creature that was jealous because of his size. However, even with the reason given, he still wasn't able to destroy the ark but he leaves at the end, determined to get revenge somehow.

Week 4 Story: My Husband, the Drunk

Noah's wife looked on with pity, watching her husband drink from the vine so hopelessly as if there were no tomorrow coming. He used to be so noble, so faithful, so pious, she thought to herself as she questioned what had driven him to do such a despicable thing. It was almost as if he had been making a deal with the devil, and that was what she found to be the most upsetting of all.

The field of vines in which Noah was spending much

of his time during this curse of drunkenness that he 

had fallen victim to. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Suddenly, she saw something that caught her completely off guard. Some strange man had appeared in the fields with her husband that she didn't recognize at all. Suddenly she began to see her husband slay random animals that approached him in the field, becoming so crazed by his drunkenness that he couldn't separate what was right and what was wrong in the slightest. She thought back on the days of their ancestors, Adam and Eve, and it brought her great pain to see what was unfolding. Determined to help her husband realize the harm in what he was doing, she sat down to write her once beloved husband a letter, pleading with him to turn from these new ways.

          My dearest Noah,
          It brings me great pain to watch you do this to yourself. You are such a devout and faithful man
          to our Lord that we have see bring us through great pain and it troubles me greatly to see you
          stray from the path that he would want for you. I know that this is not who you are. I know you
          are still the man that I have always loved so I want to remind you of what we have been called
         to do and of the fact that what you are doing is similar to what our ancestors, Adam and Eve,
         also did during their time in the garden. Remember how Adam thought that he knew better than
         our God and so he took it upon himself to eat of the fruit and drink of the vine that he was
         ordered specifically not to? How is this any different?

        I love you and it is for this reason that I write these words to you. Please repent from these evil
        ways and turn back to the man I know you are. This isn't you.

                                                  Sincerely,
                                                         Your loving wife

Satisfied with her work, Noah's wife set the pen down and made sure to plant the note in her husband's skins that he wore most often when he went out. She could only hope and pray that this was going to work. She needed her husband back and she wanted nothing more than for this curse of the drunkenness to be over.

Author's Note

For this piece, I focused it on the section of the story of Noah titled The Curse of Drunkenness where Noah strays from the things he had done to find favor in the eyes of God and instead sided with the devil and fell victim to drunkenness. However, I wrote it from the perspective of Noah's wife instead. I thought this would be effective to explain the pain of watching someone that you love go through something like that and wanting to help them as much as you can. I also thought this perspective was helpful to the way that I wanted to go with my final project because I am leaning toward doing biblical love stories and this is a perspective that isn't considered often at all. 

Bibliography: 

Luis Ginzberg's The Story of Noah

                         

Week 3 Story: Where It All Started

Taylor Randel. I don't completely know what it is about that name, but all the boys come running when she's around. As head cheerleader, I guess it makes sense that all the boys want to date her. From an outsider's perspective, it seems to be all the football coaches can do to keep their players focused on the task at hand at practice and not on Taylor jumping and flipping around in her short cheer skirt. Taylor, however, never seemed interested in any of them.

The most popular, well liked girl in the school, Taylor, 

was a member of the cheer squad. Source: Pixabay

Then one day, much to everyone's surprise, Taylor actually seemed to be flirting with Carter James. Carter, of course, was the star quarterback of the team and never had problems getting a girls attention, but no one was ever able to get Taylor's attention. This was something completely new and foreign to everyone at the high school. It was such a big deal when the two started dating that I remember hearing the head coach of the football team give a big spiel about how this was not something that he was going to allow to interfere with his football team's success. They were, after all, the reigning state champs of Georgia. All of the boys on the team shouted in agreement that they were going to still have each others backs and come back once again to dominate every team they were scheduled to play that season.

And it worked, at least for a while. Then, almost as if something changed immediately overnight, there seemed to be a growing divide between a large majority of the team members. They seemed to bicker and quarrel more than they practiced efficiently. Everyone noticed and couldn’t help but assume that it was because of some kind of budding jealousy among the team members. Was Carter bragging about landing the best girlfriend in school? Were the others refusing to work with him out of pure spite? No one knew what exactly was going on, but they did know that they needed to figure it out because in small town Georgia, there was going to be a riot if the school didn’t bring home the championship in football again.

Author's Note

For my story this week, I chose to retell the opening section of Homer's The Iliad, entitled "How the War with Troy Began." This first segment of the classical story in mythology was used to set the stage for things to come through countless acts of battle and searches for revenge. In my rewrite, I chose to set it in a modern high school setting because I felt that there were already hints of drama coming through so I figured, what better setting for something like that than a high school? I then ran with the idea and changed the gods and goddesses in the original to popular students in the high school and scaled everything to modern day proportions, creating my own rendition of this well known classic story.

Bibliography

"How the War with Troy Began" from The Iliad by Homer

Week 2 Story: Prisoner

"I can't believe mother agreed to this," thought young Bella as she angrily threw her belongings into her tattered brown travel bag. She continued to throw her belongings into the bag as she recalled the events of the day that mother had just explained to her upon her return from the village.

Apparently, the way her mother put it, she had found these beautiful ruby red slippers that she simply had to have. Exactly what for, Bella had no idea. All she knew was that her mother, a simple country woman who rarely had an opportunity to be dressed so elegantly, had decided that there was nothing more valuable than those brilliant shoes. That being said, the beast of a salesman named a price that was clearly too high for a woman who was a farmer's widow. Dismayed, her mother recalled how she had to refuse the offer, but the salesman wasn't quite ready to give up just yet. Instead, he inquired if she had any young daughters suitable for a young man looking to take a wife. Of course, you can put it together at this point, and figure that beautiful Bella's mother jumped at the opportunity for the shoes and willingly traded her daughter for them.

The beautiful, must have shoes that Bella's mother

traded her to the salesman for to be married to his

son. Source: Flickr

Several hours later, Bella trudged up to the ornate house; however, to her, it looked more like a prison and she was to be the prisoner. She thought of all the things she would miss in this place: her sisters growing up, her family's holiday traditions, going out with her friends. The list went on and on. Hesitantly, not knowing what else to do, she rang the doorbell and found herself face to face with the beast that would now be in charge of her life as she knew it. Soon, there would be a wedding, she would be a wife, and eventually a mother to this wretched man's children. This was what her life had become, thanks to her mother's thoughtless decision, and there was nothing that she could do about it at this point.

Author's Note:

The story above is a rewrite of Beauty and the Basilisk which follows the tale of a young girl who finds herself traded for three red roses to a Basilisk. However, I didn't like how Beauty was never given a voice, so that is what I attempted to do in my rewrite. I also changed the item for which she was traded and set it a little bit differently to where it wasn't an actual creature that she was given to, but rather a "beast of a man" that she was to spend the rest of her life with, all because her mother had to have these new shoes. 

Bibliography

"Beauty and the Basilisk." from The Key of Gold by Josef Baudis. Web Source.