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.

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     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.