Week 7 Story: One Good Deed a Decade

     Humans are really interesting creatures, are they not? I suppose I was one once, but I can’t say I remember. At any rate, it’s fun to mess with them, since they’re so scared of anything that’s not like them, especially of us ghosts. But once in awhile I like to do something nice for a human; it shakes things up. After all, doing anything often enough gets boring; variety is the spice of life, or whatever.

     Anyway, that is what I was doing this last week. As I wandered along the road I saw a man walking towards me. Now, something told me that while this man wasn’t especially good, he also wasn’t a bad man. He was neutral, if you would. He led an ordinary life, and was just traveling along the road to get to the next place he could find work. 

     Just to mess with him, as soon as we met each other in the road I flipped around and started walking alongside him. I like to do this a lot; usually what happens involves screaming, running, and a great deal of amusement (for me anyway). But this man didn’t do any of that. He kept walking as if this was an everyday occurrence  That was rather interesting, since no one else had ever done that before. I decided to keep walking with him and see what happened.

     Shortly after I joined him, we came to a river where we had to swim to cross it to the other side (I think there’s a joke in there). Obviously, I didn’t make any noise at all (most things just pass through me if I choose to let them), but I swear the man was making more noise than was reasonable. So I asked him why on earth he was making so much noise when he swam. I admit, I wasn’t expecting him to lie and say that he was a ghost and could do whatever he wanted. But I admired his boldness in doing so. So I told him that in that case, one ghost to another, we should become friends and come to each other’s aid if we ever needed to. Not that I expected to require a human’s help. But I decided that my first impression of him being a decent man was correct, and this would serve as my good deed to humans for the decade.

     So as we walked, I mused on a way to conduct my good deed. Eventually I asked the man if there was anything he feared. Obviously lying, the man said he didn’t fear anything. Then he asked me the same question. I told him that I was afraid of the wind blowing through a field of barley. It was the dumbest thing I could think of, and I knew the town we were walking toward grew barley in its outskirts. I figured the man was smart enough to lie to try to get away from me.

     Sure enough, when we came to the city, I asked the man if he wanted to go into town with me. The man said he was tired and was going to lie down in the field of barley to rest. I walked away and continued into town. While this might have been my good deed for one human, that didn’t mean I couldn’t have some fun with others. So I did my usual tricks of scaring people, destroying things, etc. For my grand finale, I made my way into the palace and stole the soul of the king’s son. He was a brat anyway, and a near-death experience is good for the soul (heh, get it?). I bound up the soul in a yak-hair bag and left the city. I dropped it at the edge of the field where the man was sleeping (gotta keep up pretenses after all), and told him to watch the sack for me, since I had business elsewhere to attend to.

     Obviously I never went back. I had a feeling the man would know what to do. And sure enough, about a week later, I heard some gossip between a couple human females while they were washing their clothes. They said that the king’s son had fallen gravely ill, but had been cured by a begging holy man who walked into town earlier in the day. The king had been so grateful for the man’s help that he had given the man half of everything he owned, both riches and land. That made me smile a little, before I made myself solid enough to move one of the bed sheets the women had hung up. It may be a stereotype, but it is fun to run around under a sheet to scare people. 

Source

Author’s note: this is a retelling of The Man and the Ghost, from a collection of Tibetan Folk Tales by A. L. Shelton. The original story is told from a 3rd person point of view, and we only learn the thoughts and feelings of the man, not the ghost. The end of the story specifically mentions that the ghost never came back to the man again, leaving the man to assume that this is customary behavior between a man and a ghost. I thought it would be interesting to look at the ghost’s reason for causing such havoc and walking away, and figure that maybe he wanted to be nice for a change (the alternative that I could come up with was that he was very scatterbrained, but I like the idea I went with more than that). 

Reading Notes: Tibetan Folk Tales, Part B

For the second part of reading notes I decided to go with another Tibetan Folk Tale. This one is called “How the Wolf, the Fox, and the Rabbit Committed a Crime,” also from A. L. Shelton collection as well.

Reading Notes

• A wolf, a fox, and a rabbit were walking along the road when they came across a wizard carrying a bag.
• The rabbit told the others that he knew the man would drop his bag and chase after him if he started limping, so the others could circle around and steal the bag.
• Sure enough, when the man saw the limping rabbit he dropped his bag and grabbed some rocks to chase after the rabbit, so the fox and wolf were able to grab the bags. 
• When the man failed to catch the rabbit and came back to find his stuff gone, he walked away while wondering what on earth he could do now.
• Meanwhile, the three animals met back up to open the bags and see what they’d stolen. 
• They found a pair of heavy boots, a cymbal with a clapper, and a container of tea and bread.
• The rabbit acted as the divider: he told the wolf to take the boots because the wolf had to walk a lot, and the fox to take the cymbal to amuse his children; this left the rabbit with the food.
• The three went their separate ways.
• The wolf put the boots on to hunt a sheep, but they were so heavy he fell on ice and couldn’t get up, and was found and killed by the shepard.
• The fox took the cymbal home and walked into his home ringing it, and rather than amusing his children it scared them all to death.
• So the rabbit ate all the food and was the only one to be satisfied. 

Source

Reading Notes: Tibetan Folk Tales, Part A

This week one of the stories that caught my eye is a Tibetan folk tale, The Man and the Ghost. This comes from Tibetan Folk Tales, by A. L. Shelton. It’s about what happens when a traveler meets a ghost on his journey.

Reading Notes

• A man was walking along a road when a ghost suddenly started walking along beside him; the man was scared, but did his best not to show it.
• Soon they came to a river that they had to swim across to get to the other side.
• The man was very noisy when he swam of course, and the ghost made no noise at all, being a ghost.
• The ghost asked the man why he was so noisy, and the man replied that he was a ghost too, and therefore could be as loud as he wanted. 
• The ghost proposed that in that case, they should become good friends so they could help each other if need be.
• As they walked along, the ghost asked the man if he feared anything; the man replied he didn’t (and lied through his teeth).
• When the man asked, the ghost said the only thing he feared was the sound of the wind blowing through a barley field.
• As evening fell they came towards the outskirt of a city; the ghost decided to go into town, while the man said he wanted to sleep in a barley field on the edge of town.
• The ghost went into town and wrecked havoc, including stealing the soul of the king’s son.
• He bound up the soul in a sack, took it to the edge of the field where the man was sleeping, and left the sack there, telling the man to attend to the soul because he had business elsewhere.
• The man disguised himself as a holy man and took the sack into the city with him. 
• When he arrived he heard that the king’s son was very ill and about to die, and he knew at once what was wrong.
• He went to the palace and, out of desperation, the king and his advisors asked for his help; in fact, the king promised half of his wealth to the man if he could cure his son. 
• The man sat down and put on a show of performing some holy rituals, and opened the sack to let the soul out.
• The son recovered, and the king was so grateful he did keep his word to the man.
• The ghost never returned, and the man thought this must be customary etiquette between a ghost and a man.

Source 

Week 6 Story Lab: TV Tropes

This week, instead of doing a storytelling (and since I was only able to do one reading this week), I did one of the Story Labs. More specifically, I did the TV Tropes rabbithole (which is a trope). Despite the “TV” in the name, TV tropes are found in any form of storytelling, whether it’s on page, on a screen, or even told orally. Not all TV tropes are bad, and indeed it’s not bad to use them, although doing so abundantly isn’t the best thing to do.

Some tropes aren’t super obvious, such as the Ensemble Dark Horse, which refers to characters that unexpectedly become popular within the fanbase, resulting in demands of the creators to expand upon the character. Examples include Minions from the Despicable Me movies, or Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter. These are minor characters, relatively speaking, but for whatever reason, the fan base latches onto the character and demands for more of them from the creators. Usually (ironically) they also get upset when this happens, as the character will do something that the fan base feels is out of character (but we’re not going to get into the issue of fan bases feeling they own a character).

I refuse to post a picture of a minion on my blog (Source)

Then there’s the “Everyone Calls Him ‘Barkeep’” trope, which is where the character is referred to by their job title or a descriptive word. It can also be a nickname that is used so commonly that for all intents and purposes, it is the character’s name. Examples include Beast from Beauty and the Beast (in the original movie his real name is never given, although in the musical they reveal his name to be Adam), or the title character from the book The Giver. Often the character’s real name is mentioned once somewhere in the media form, but it’s only done once and rarely brought up again. They’re just referred to as their nickname.

Beast, as portrayed in the original movie (Source)

Speaking of Beauty and the Beast, there’s also the trope of the Grand Staircase Entrance. Most likely populated by the Disney’s Cinderella, this is the trope where the (usually) female character makes a grand entrance by appearing at the top of a grand staircase, dressed to the nines and looking much better/fancier than she usually does. Plenty of time is given for the audience to admire the change from the character’s typical appearance, and to see what fancy outfit she has on. 

Hermione gets her own staircase entrance in the movie Goblet of Fire (Source)

So, to conclude, it can be really fun to go looking through TV tropes. The website is great about pulling examples from all kinds of media to show examples, and even some real life ones sometimes. Plus there’s often a slight amount of snark in the articles, which is hilarious.

Reading Notes: Khasi Folktales, Part A

Stories that tell the origin of something are always pretty interesting to me, so naturally I was drawn to the Khasi Folktale about How the Dog Came to Live with Man, from K. U. Rafy's collection. This is something that a lot of cultures visit a lot, but I like this take on it. It implies that the dog is crafty, which is usually not the case in other stories.

Reading Notes

• The most important fair of all has arrived, and according with degree, each animal must bring something of some sort of value that can be sold.
• Man was an enemy of the animals, so he wasn't invited.
• The dog, being ironically lazy, didn't want to make something himself like the others, but instead decided to wander the countryside all day looking for something he could pass off as his own.
• At the end of the day, he chanced upon a house where a family was eating fermented Khasi beans.
• Being nice, the wife invited the dog to eat with them, which he gladly did.
• Afterwards, realizing he could take the Khasi beans to the fair, the dog bargained with the family and ended up leaving with a clay pot of beans strapped to his back.
• On the way to the fair, he bragged so much about his jar that the other animals were all very curious to see what he had.
• Unfortunately, when the dog finally uncovered the jar, a bad smell came out; all the other animals made fun of the dog, and eventually destroyed the pot and trampled the food into the ground.
• The dog tried to get the governor of the fair, the tiger, to intervene, but was just told off.
• The dog eventually lost his temper, cursed all the animals, and ran away, where Man consoled him and offered the dog a place in his home.
• The curse worked, because the stench of the food clung to the other animals, and so the Dog was able to track them for Man when out hunting.
• Later, when Man had tamed Pig, he noticed Pig and Dog being lazy and decided to put them to work, sowing furrows in the field.
• The Pig did a lot of the work, while Dog lazied around and jumped all over the furrows the pig had made.
• Eventually the pig got tired of this, and complained to Man, who was loath to believe that Dog would be so lazy.
• When Man inspected the work that had been done, he found the tracks of Dog all over, while only a few tracks of Pig's
• Man decided that Pig had lied, and to punish him, made him sleep in a small separate shack and eat slop while Dog got to stay in Man's house and eat a normal dinner.

Ktung rymbai, also called tungrymbai; it's made from fermented soybeans (Source)

Reading Notes: Folk-Tales of Bengal, Part B

Today’s story is called The Bald Wife, and is also from the Folk-Tales of Bengal, by the Rev. Lal Behari Day. This story is meant to remind, like many other stories, that being a good person can get you everything, while being a bad person will get you nothing.

Reading Notes

• A man had two wives, and favored the younger one (who had two tufts of hair) more than the older one (who had only one tuft of hair).
• As such, the younger wife abused her sister-wife regularly, since the man would go out of town to do business.
• One day, the younger wife demanded the older wife search her head for lice; while the older wife was doing this, one of the younger wife’s tufts of hair came out by chance.
• The younger wife, very angry, pulled out the older wife’s one tuft of hair and drove her away.
• Now totally bald, the older wife decided to walk into the forest and either be eaten by an animal or die of starvation.
• As she walked, she walked by a cotton plant, a plantain tree, a bull in a shed, and a tulasi plant. 
• Each time, she swept the area around them clean with a broom she made from sticks, and was blessed in return.
• Eventually she came upon a hut where a muni (a holy person) was meditating. 
• Upon being questioned by the muni, the older wife told him everything that had happened to her.
• The muni told her to go to a tank of water and bath herself in it only once.
• The older wife did as she was instructed, and emerged from the water with floor length black hair and looking young and beautiful. 
• She went back and gave her thanks to the muni, who told her to go into the hut and take one of the wicker baskets in there; the older wife did, and selected a plain one.
• The muni told her to open the basket, and in it were many precious stones of various types; the muni told her the basket would refill itself with more stones every time it emptied, and sent her on her way.
• As she walked back home, she passed each of the creatures she had previously cleansed and shown respect to.
• Each one, as she passed by, gave her a gift:
• The tulasi plant blessed her with her husband’s love, the bull blessed her with shells that would help her obtain whatever ornament she wanted, the plantain tree blessed her with a leaf that would help her get food, and the cotton plant blessed her with a branch that would produce all kinds of fabric.
• Upon her return, the younger wife was shocked to see that the old bald hag had turned into a beautiful young woman.
• Although the older wife treated the younger wife with great kindness, the younger wife was bitter of her sister-wife’s looks.
• When she learned that the older wife’s looks came from the muni, the younger wife set off immediately to find his hut.
• She followed the same path as the older wife, but passed by the cotton plant, the plantain tree, the bull, and the tulasi plant without any kind of acknowledgement.
• The younger wife came to the muni’s hut, and he told her the same thing he had told the older wife.
• The younger wife bathed herself once, and was beautiful with a full head of hair, but she decided a second bath would make herself even more beautiful.
• Instead, she emerged looking exactly as she had before bathing herself.
• When she went crying to the muni, he drove her away, chastising her for her greed.
• She went back to the house; when their husband came home, he paid attention only to his beautiful older wife and all her wealth and resources, while the younger wife was kept as a maid.

The elder wife bathing and becoming beautiful (Souce)

Reading Notes: The Folk-Tales of Bengal, Part A

This week I ended up reading The Boy Whom Seven Mothers Suckled, which is from the Folk-Tales of Bengal, by the Rev. Lal Behari Day. In this story, a king with multiple wives ends up marrying a mythological creature that threatens the other wives.

Reading Notes

• As I previously stated, the king had seven wives, and he was sad that all of them were barren. 
• A holy man recommended to him that if he go to a mango tree and pluck the seven mangos growing on one branch, then give his wives one mango each, they’d become pregnant.
• The king did this, and soon all of his wives were pregnant.
• But one day the king was out hunting, saw a beautiful woman, and fell in love with her.
• He brought her back and married her, but he didn’t realize that she was a Rakshasi, a mythological creature.
• She challenged the king one day, and said that if he really loved her, he would blind his other wives and then have them killed.
• So for whatever reason, the king ordered all of his pregnant wives to have their eyes removed, and he ordered his minister to kill them.
• But his minister hid the wives in a cave in a hill, rather than have them killed.
• The eldest queen eventually gave birth, but she said that since they were all blind and starving, she would kill the child and they could each have a piece to eat.
• So that’s what they all did, except the youngest queen, who just kept the piece. 
• Each of the queens gave birth in order of age, and each of them killed their child and cut it into pieces to share with the others, except for the youngest queen.
• When the youngest queen gave birth to her son, she decided to keep him alive rather than kill him.
• The other queens demanded their portion, and she gave them the pieces she’d save from their children.
• But since the meat was dry, the other queens knew this wasn’t fresh meat.
• When confronted, the youngest queen admitted that she wanted to keep her son alive; the other queens admired her for this, and they all agreed to nurse the son.
• So the son grew big and strong thanks to all the queens working together.
• Meanwhile, the Rakshasi was causing trouble in the king’s palace.
• She would go out at night and eat all the animals and people she could find, and the king had no one left to help him. 

One of the representations of a Rakshasi (Source)

Comment Wall

Storybook Location

Source

Week 4 Story: When Luck Runs Out

     I start this story by telling you that I’ve been lucky. I survived to manhood in Ancient Greece, which is no small feat. I was one of the warriors who was picked by Odysseus to travel to Troy. I managed to survive a war that lasted for ten long years. Finally, I’m headed home to Ithaca. I’ll see my son and wife again; I’m sure my son is a man in his own now. When you consider everything I’ve been through, I’d say I’m favored by the Fates.

     Odysseus is a little odd, but he is a great leader. After all, he managed to keep us alive for this long. Those of us on his ship anyway. The others were destroyed a while back. It’s a little hard to keep track of the days and weeks, or even months, on the ocean. One day bleeds into the next. Although some of them stand out. Like the monster we encountered, with just the one eye. That was terrifying, especially when he ate a couple of the men. But I’m lucky that I survived that too, I guess. 

     We’re finally back on the ocean again. I don’t know exactly why Odysseus made us go to the land of the dead, but after one last talk with Circe we’re headed home again. Odysseus tends to get distracted, but I know he’s as homesick as the rest of us. Circe gave him some advice apparently. There are these things called Sirens up ahead; Odysseus said they sing songs so beautiful you try to reach them on their little island and end up dying, either because you drown or because they eat you. It’s death to hear them. But, him being him, he wants to listen to their song, probably out of curiosity and for the bragging right. So all of us now have wax in our ears so we can’t hear anything. A couple other guys tied Odysseus to the mast. I can see him from my position at the oar if I turn my head the right way. A few minutes ago he was just standing there, but now he’s struggling, pretty badly too. I’d think he’d hurt himself if I didn’t know how tightly bound he is. I suppose that means we’re within hearing distance of the sirens’ rocks.

*********************************************************************************

     It took a while, but Odysseus isn’t struggling anymore. He had told us that would mean we were out of hearing of the sirens’ song. It does feel nice to take the wax out of my ears. You don’t realize how much you rely on your hearing for balance, especially on the ocean, until it’s gone.
     I know there are more dangers ahead. I wish Odysseus would tell us exactly, but he’s been a little vague. At some point there’s a monstrous whirlpool by some cliffs. Or a monster that is a whirlpool, I’m not sure which. After he was removed from the mast he gave a speech, told us not to worry and to trust him, basically. All of us do, especially since he's led us this far. Now that we're approaching the whirlpool, he's gotten more specific. Apparently we’ve got to stick as close to the cliffs as we can without actually hitting them. It’s the only way to avoid getting sucked into the whirlpool.
     That whirlpool is terrifying, now that we’re close. I can feel the blood drain from my face, and saw it reflected in my companion’s face. I catch a glimpse of Odysseus, and had enough time to think, “Why he did he change into his armor, is he expecting an attack?” when it happens.
     Something tight and sharp grabs me painfully by the shoulder, and suddenly I’m yanked into the air. My screams mingle with those of others, and I manage to see that a horrible, horrible monster has grabbed me with only one of its heads. There are others also caught by the other heads, and we’re all screaming desperately as the monster drags us into the cave. I catch a last glimpse, impossibly, of Odysseus, standing there in full armor and looking after us as we die.
      I guess my luck finally ran out.

(Source: The Book Palace)

Author’s note: This is the last segment of Kline's translation of The Odyssey that’s available for the readings. Everything up until this part has been backstory: Odysseus is explaining his tale to the Phaeacians, whose shore he washed up on. From there Odysseus eventually makes his way back home. All in all, he was gone for ten years fighting the Trojan War, and it took him another ten years to get back home.
Odysseus’s journey took a long time for various reasons, but one of them is because of the interference of the gods. The aforementioned cyclops (the one eyed monster) is a son of Poseidon. When Odysseus injured the cyclops, Poseidon cursed him and interfered with his trip home. In the end, none of Odysseus’s men made it home with him.
I ended up taking the perspective of one of the sailors for that reason. It’s miraculous that a lot of them survived the war to head home (initially there were twelve ships that left Troy; as mentioned in the story all but the ship Odysseus was on were destroyed). I liked the idea of one of them making it so far, and thinking they were so close to home, only to miss out. There’s a lot more in the Odyssey that I didn’t mention, because it would take too long, but the same idea is there. I'm not fully satisfied with the story, but I think I did okay in getting into the mindset.

Reading Notes: The Odyssey, Part B

This is the end of Odysseus’ adventures in getting home after the Trojan War. Having managed to escape from the cyclops, Odysseus and his men sail on, encountering the witch Circe on her island. Eventually, they escape from her as well, but with warnings of the sirens and the two sea monsters, Scylla and Charybdis. This story, from Kline's translation of Homer's Odyssey, sums up the last of his adventures, after which it returns to the present setting (Odysseus telling his story to the people who found him washed up on shore).

Reading Notes

• Odysseus explains to his men that he wants to hear the sirens' song (although he doesn't appear to explain why) and what he has planned for them.
• The sirens' song lures men to their death (the sirens eat them)
• The crew all stuff their ears with wax, and Odysseus is tied to the mast of the ship.
• Although he is enchanted by the sirens' song, he can't break free of the ropes, and as the men can't hear him, they don't obey his order to let him free.
• They free him after they're out of range
• (This gets copied a lot in various fictions)
• They go towards the two sister sea monsters, Scylla and Charybdis
• Odysseus was warned of them by Circe, but he doesn't totally obey her instructions about staying unarmed.
• Charybdis is a whirlpool, while Scylla is a six-headed monster.
• The ship is so focused on avoiding Charybdis that Odysseus loses six of his crewmen to Scylla, who eats them, one per head.
• Odysseus describes the site as the saddest thing he's seen on the sea (this from a man who fought a ten-year-long war).

I feel like Odysseus was probably tied more securely to the mast than is shown. (Source: Wikipedia)

Reading Notes: Saints and Animals, Part A

This story is about the Wonders of Saint Berach, from Abbie Farwell Brown’s collection. Apparently Saint Berach was a member of a parish in Ireland, and one of his duties was to watch the cows. This is what the story is based on.

Reading Notes

• Ireland was apparently a wild country at the time (this was like 600 AD)
• Berach liked to tend to the cows, and was especially fond of a cow called Bel, who had a calf.
• One day, as he was watching them from the window of his cell, he saw a wolf approaching Bel and her calf, who had strayed from the herd.
• Berach ran to the field, but he was too late; the wolf had killed and eaten the calf.
• Berach was angry at first, because he hated to see how distressed Bel was at the death of her calf.
• However, Berach thought about it, and realized that the wolf was probably hungry and didn’t know any better since he hadn’t been raised properly.
• Berach was pretty good with animals, and he called out to the wolf in a stern voice to come to him.
• Sure enough, the wolf did, and Berach spoke kindly to the wolf as the wolf crouched at his feet.
• He also went to Bel and took her over to the wolf, talking calmly so they wouldn’t freak out.
• He told the cow that the wolf would be her son now, and she was to treat him as she did her calf; he told the wolf that the cow would be his mother, and he was to listen to her and follow her wisdom.
• The cow and wolf lived together after that, and the wolf protected both Bel and the rest of the herd from other predators. 
• After this, in the winter, a child who was schooled at the monastery became ill, and begged for apples and other juicy things.
• The Abbott trusted that Berach would be able to find something. 
• Berach prayed in his room, then went to the field and found a tree; when he pronounced a blessing, the snow melted from the tree and apples grew and fell from it.
• Berach took the apples back to the monastery, and the child grew well after eating them.

A glass image of St. Berach (Source)

Thoughts on Feedback Strategies

In an online class I took a few years back, I remember that we had to go through and read someone’s response to something, and respond back, but we couldn’t talk about the same thing that someone else had already mentioned. So if I wanted to talk about the person’s thoughts on a matter, but someone else already had, then I was SOL. Giving feedback when you’re restricted in that manner is hard. 

That being said, feedback is generally pretty helpful (unless someone is being negative just because they want to be). When looking at the articles to read from, one of the ones I was drawn to was Deborah Maue’s article on giving creative feedback when you’re not creative. I don’t consider myself to be a particularly creative person; I’m a great consumer of arts (books, media, etc), but actually creating something is pretty hard for me, and not something I can do easily. Give me a structure to work with though, and I can go from there. This is precisely what the article does: it gives a structure to follow to help you organize and come up with constructive criticism. 

Another article that I liked was How to Give Feedback without Sounding Like a Jerk, by Adam Grant. When he asked colleagues for advice on giving feedback to an older CEO, a lot of them told him to do it like a sandwich: start and end with positive feedback, and put the negative feedback in the middle. But this isn’t really effective. For one thing, it can seem condescending to the receiver. And people tend to remember the beginning and end of a conversation anyway, not the middle (this is true for anything, actually: lists, conversations, etc). So the negative feedback might be forgotten. Adam instead proposed that it was best to explain why you’re giving the feedback, make sure that you’re perceived to be on the same level as the recipient (make this seem like a conversation between equals, not information being handed down), and making sure the person wants to hear the feedback.

So, all in all, while feedback is important, presenting it properly can be difficult. In this class, since all the feedback is going to be presented in text, there are some things that’ll need to be taken into consideration, but the principles from these two articles will be much the same. Hopefully I’ll be able to improve my feedback strategies overall, not just for this class.

To be fair, cats can't read, so they don't know properly ways to give feedback. Source

Topic Research: Spin Me a Yarn

While I did enjoy the various topics I came up with, I think the one that I’m going to focus on for my storybook is the idea of the yarn/weaving shop. As I said in that post, I think my boyfriend came up with the perfect name: Spin Me a Yarn. 

As it turns out, Wikipedia has a page called Textiles in Mythology and Folklore, which is going to be very helpful for this. It’s got a list of all the world’s myths and folklore that center around things involving weaving, yarn, spinning, etc. It gives me a good reference point, but since it only summarizes, I think I’ll need to use other sources to get a full story layout to reference for my storybook.

So, in no particular order, here’s three stories I think I want to focus on:

1: Athena and Arachne

Source

In Greek mythology, Athena was the patron goddess of weaving, among other things. Arachne was a shepherd's daughter, and boasted that she was better at weaving than the goddess. Athena challenged her to a contest, and (depending on the version) when Arachne won, she gloated entirely too much and as punishment, Athena turned her into the first spider. I can use the Book of Myths by Jean Lang as a source for this; it seems to have one of the original versions (or as good as it gets): Ovid’s.

2: The Weaver Maiden and the Herdsman

Source

This story is from Chinese folklore. The Goddess Weaver is responsible for weaving the Milky Way, and did so until she fell in love with a mortal shepherd. Her parents ordered them to be separated, but she refused to continue weaving. So as compromise, she gets to meet her lover once a year, when magpies form a bridge over which they can cross to meet. This source comes from the Myths of the World by Padraic Colum. This one might be a bit of a stretch, but I’ll work on it and reconsider.

3: The Six Swans

Source

This story is a Brothers Grimm tale. Basically, because an evil stepmother cursed her six brothers, a princess has to weave six shirts from nettles, and she can’t talk or laugh for six years, or she won’t be able to change her brothers back at all. The princess lives in the woods while she works on her task, and a king from another kingdom finds her and marries her. Her mother-in-law is suspicious of her since the princess never says anything or laughs; when the princess gives birth three times, her mother-in-law takes the babies away and accuses the princess of murdering her children. Right before the princess is set to be burned at the stake, she finishes the last shirt. Her brothers fly down from the sky and she throws the shirts on them, turning them human again. This source comes from Margaret Hunt’s translation of the Brothers Grimm. I’ve read a couple different stories that are based on this tale, and it’s a very nice one to expand upon. I think I can work with it.

There are other myths and folklores I’m going to look into as well, I think, such as Mama Oclio (the Incan goddess who taught the art of spinning thread) or Crane’s Return of a Favor (a Japanese tale of a crane that repays a couple’s kindness by weaving fine cloth for them to sell). Regardless, I think this gives me a place to start.