Essay for Week 14

Different Kind of Magic

Russia still has an odd mixture of religion. Image Info.

In these Russian Folk Tales, there is still lots of magic and talking animals and transformations of people into geographical elements, but there all of these things are done because of or with permission of God. It almost feels like the stories were all taken and remade to be able to fit into a corrected version that is actually suitable for children.

A lot of the stories read like parables or a bad TV show that throws in a corny message somewhere in the end. In particular, "The Treasure," is a story about a poor man who finds a treasure and a horrible reverend who tries to steal the money from the man. The reverend dresses in goat skin posing as the devil and scares the old man into giving up the money. When he returns home and attempts to take off the goat skin costume, it has become his flesh. He is not a goat but some sort of horrible creature, and all this doing was accredited to God punishing him for his evil ways.

Another story, "The Three Copecks," features an orphan who is continually rewarded by trusting that God will lead him happiness if he is done what he is told. In the end, he ends up with a lovely life and a very comfortable living. This one, along with many others, does not overtly mention God, but it always throws in some "thank you, Lord" phrases and "praise be to God!" shouts and such. It is just interesting to see the difference in the origins of the people telling the stories. All the european folk tales talk about witches and evil, but the good magic all comes from pagan origins like the spirits of the forest or fairies, never religion. Even though the stories are identical to other folk tales, the small changes point out the differences in the people groups at the time of the story telling. Clearly, Russia has had many people groups and religions, but these stories seem to have come from only one of those groups.

Read the stories.

Storytelling Week 14

Emilian The Wicked

Unmagical pike. Luc Viatour. Image information. 

There once lived a man named Emilian who was quite wicked indeed. He was lazy and never did anything he was asked. He was very odd and had very violent tendencies. He had three older brothers who were all married, and he would often go to their houses for dinner. It is not that he particularly enjoyed the company of his family, but he did enjoy the free food. His brothers' wives were all afraid of him and hated him.

On a holiday, the wicked man and his family were all to eat together. The older brothers left for town to get more supplies and told the wicked man to do what their wives asked. Though the wives gave him simple tasks, he refused to help any at all. He yelled at them and called them useless whores. By this time, they were used to the laziness, but the name calling became too much. One of the wives repeatedly hit him on the head with a bucket and screamed at him until he agreed to fill the the bucket with water.

The wicked man planned on taking his time filling the bucket, and when he arrived at the stream, he began to fish. Almost immediately, he caught a pike. This particular pike happened to possess great magical power, and promised to give the man all he wished if he would set the fish free. He could have anything that he wished for aloud. The wicked man agreed, and with the freeing of the fish, came into a power which only increased his evil ways.

The first thing he wished for was his brothers' wives would all do a terrible job preparing the meal and therefore cause a quarrel among them. When he returned, he found all the women blaming each other for ruining the holiday. Next, the wicked man's brothers came in and he wished that they also join the quarrel. With each brother physically attacking another, the wicked man left their home and went into town.

On his walk to town, he grew lazy and wished for an axe to cut down the trees and make a grand carriage for him. The black carriage quickly appeared and headed into town without any horses. This caused quite a raucous in town, the peasants all claiming that the devil must be inside that carriage so evil-looking and driving without horses. Being compared to the devil only made the wicked man laugh with delight and hunger for more power.

At the edge of town, the people created a road block with men and women holding torches and pitchforks. The carriage picked up speed and drove straight through the mob. No one was killed, but many were greatly injured. As the wicked man continued his journey, word made it to the king what was happening. The king was a just man, and he decided that this wickedness must be immediately ended.

When Emilian arrived at the king's castle, he planned on wishing himself king and taking over the entire country. The magic pike had sensed that his power was being used in horrible ways and he appeared in the drinking fountain of the king's palace. Together, the fish and the king decided how to end this madness. When the wicked man arrived, he wished for the guards of the palace to be beaten by their own armor, and he walked right through the gate. As soon as he stepped foot through the door, he was captured by the king who then put cloth in his mouth. The wicked man tried and tried again to wish himself free, but since the wish was not audible, the magic would not work.

Next, for his heinous crimes (and because the king liked to be dramatic), the wicked man was placed in a bath tub filled with tar which was thrown in the ocean in front of all the people of the land. However, the man did not die, but he turned into a pike, though now without any magic.

Author's Note: The original story here is called "The Foolish Man," but he did a lot of the same mean things. He still hurts the townspeople with large pieces of wood. That story has it set up where the fool marries the king's daughter, but the king throws them both in the ocean (because they are fools). He wishes himself free and into a new, giant palace with lots of wealth. The king accepts them now as part of the family since he has money. I just really didn't like the fool character, so I made him more evil.

Bibliography: Ralston. "The Foolish Man." Russian Fairy Tales. 1887.
Original Story

Week 14 Reading Diary

The Dead Mother
-Zombie mom feeds the baby at night and baby also dies

The Treasure
-Poor old man finds a treasure, seems more like a Biblical parable at first
-Turns to a tale involving evil "pope" which I guess is meaning reverend or bishop
-God cursed the evil reverend by turning his devil costume to flesh

The Bad Wife
-Same one as before with the annoying wife in a pit with the imp who wants out and grants a wish

The Three Copecks
-Orphan is smart and ends up with lots of money and a good wife
-These are not the same kind of magic, it is like Russian Orthodox fairy tales

The Miser
-Fun with money and pranks and no one is smites after all
-But not really a moral

The Water Snake
-Marries a snake, carried into underwater kingdom of people
-While the daughter was asleep at her mom's, the mom summons the husband out of the water and CHOPS OFF HIS HEAD WITH AN AXE
-her and her kids turn to birds
-first one without God or Lord in it

Friday
-I can't tell if this is about a sabbath day or what

Wednesday
-Wednesday is apparently evil

The Leshy
-A hunter and his dog go after a demon in the forest
-Much more up front than normal characters
-He aslo saves a kidnapped girl with amnesia, pretty good
-Marriage again

Dnieper, Volga, and Dvina
-Poor orphans decide to become great rivers
-This is seen as easy  back in the day
-The brother's river is better

Emilian the Fool
-Real weird
-magic is from the pike
-unlimited wishes
-king marries his daughter to fool and kinda tries to kill them
-get out with magic and just live with the king happily

Read the full stories

Famous Last Words Week 13

The Week Where I Actually Look At The Grades

I have actually been kind of slacking in the assignments. At this moment, I am writing this because I had planned on doing the extra credit that was available to me for the next couple of weeks to guarantee an A. I just did the grade check one, and actually I am still on par to get an A even with my multiple skippings of writing comments on other's stories. Some of the stories are really fun to read, and doing the assignment for those is super easy. However, sometimes you just get that person who clearly had a busy week, so they just retold the story in modern english without changing any part of the story. Those weeks make me want  to quit the assignment early. Anyway, this week has not been a week where I will quit early. I still have to do a storybook assignment (I think), and I promised myself I would do the rest of the assignments until I got enough points to get an A.

Anything other than an A on an online class where I get to make up stories is unacceptable. I have actually really enjoyed getting to write silly stories, and I think I have not been able to do anything like this in so long that stuff just pours out really easily. The only times I have had trouble while writing is making sure that my storybook pages actually somewhat fit the theme and intro that I have. At this point, I am probably going to have to rewrite a lot of the intro. Also, since I have The Doctor as a narrator, there are a lot of people who keep looking back on mine to see what more I have written. Everyone has in their own mind how The Doctor would react in these situations, and I do not want to disappoint them. I really do not let him make any decisions because that is probable the hardest part of a character to reproduce. By just having him narrate, I can repeat his mannerisms and vocabulary easily without having to psychologically dissect the character to find out his actions in a new storyline.

On the other hand, I do not really care if other people think he would react differently because I am the only one doing it. I really was surprised that no one had done it since it was an example in the notes for a narrator.

The Doctor Who Title from the BBC.  Image Info

Essay Post Week 13

Grimm Fairy Tales Are Basically YouTube

I am sure you have all heard how dark and horrible the original fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm are when compared to the magical, watered down versions of today. I would agree that they are dark and can be scary for little kids, but that was partially their purpose. Making kids afraid to go alone in the dark or to take candy from strangers is a good thing. However, there are points in the story where people get pregnant out of wedlock, like in Rapunzel, or where characters die in pretty horrible ways. But, if you were to look at some of the cartoons of today, I feel like you would be just as surprised at the weird things that you find. And if you were to go on YouTube, there is no limit to the odd, offensive, and inappropriate things you could find.

I think that if you compare the stories from The Brothers Grimm to modern day stories that are intended for a younger audience, then you will find that they are basically at the same level. One of the stories in particular that I read this week struck me as what would make a hilarious YouTube video. In "The Straw, The Coal, and The Bean," the titular characters survive a long, scary night of cooking and decide to run away together to increase their chances of staying alive. The bean, coal, and straw all talk to one another and they say a lot of nonsense. When they come to a small stream, they decide that it is a good idea for the coal to walk across on the straw. The coal freaks out, catches the straw on fire, and then they both fall into the stream. The bean is watching on the bank and laughs so hard that he splits open. This story is basically pointless, but I thought it was hilarious. If it was on YouTube, I would share it and watch it and tweet it and force my friends to watch it.

The ability for such a weird, humorous story to be in the middle of these dark stories, made me think that the dark parts were not actually meant to be taken that seriously. Apparently, people who write stories for children have always been really weird. When people look back at Adventure Time, I am sure they will wonder why anyone would watch such a weird, nonsensical show. But, they are forgetting that we know how weird it is and we like it anyway. Everyone has always seen how violent and odd these fairy tales are, but that will never stop people from sharing their magic and entertainment.

 Adventure Time poster. Image Info.

Read the stories here.

Storytelling Week 13

The Traveling Band of Heroes

In the little town of Smallville, there lived an old donkey on a farm. This donkey had worked all his life, but now he was getting too old to be of any use. One night, he overheard his owner saying how he planned on buying a new donkey and selling the old one to the dog food plant. When the donkey heard this, he knew it was time to go, so he said, "I will leave at once and pursue my dreams of becoming famous!"

The next morning, the donkey had made it all the way out of town when he came across an old, sad dog on a farm. When the donkey inquired about the sadness of the dog, he explained that he was of no use to his owner anymore because he could not see well enough to help hunt. The donkey invited him to come on his quest for fame, and the dog quickly agreed.

They continued their journey on to two more towns and picked up two more companions: a cat who had lost her quickness which helped to catch mice and a rooster who no longer had the ability to crow. The group was quite an odd combination of animals, but they all made a pact not to fight with one another in honor of their efforts to become famous in the big city. After a week of traveling, they finally made it to their destination, Metropolis.

Metropolis was even bigger and more crowded than they had imagined. When they made it to downtown, they were worried about losing each other in the crowd, so they decided to stick together by carrying one another. The cat offered to let the rooster get on his back. The dog offered to carry the cat. The donkey told the dog that he could ride on his saddle. So there was a sort of pyramid of animals in walking around downtown Metropolis. Everyone was pointing and taking pictures and the animals loved it! This may be their chance to become famous. With the confidence found from the beginnings of true fame, they strutted down the middle of the street, each animal making noises as they were ogled at.

As the walked past a bank, some men in masks ran out with bags and weapons. The dog, thinking this to be a hunting group, jumped off the donkey, causing everyone to fall and let out a loud screech of pain. The robbers were frightened by the sudden sight of the animals, then the horrible combination of noises and a dog lunging toward them, and they immediately surrendered. The animals were caught on video and suddenly become heroes through the power of the internet. Before they knew it they were on every local and national news broadcast that could get their hands on them. They successfully ended their journey for fame, and it only took a couple of weeks.

The animal pyramid. Marcks statue in Germany. Photo information.

Author's Note: "The Traveling Musicians" features the same characters accidentally frightening a group of bandits in an old barn, but no one is around to see it. I tweaked it to be in front of a lot of people as well as cameras. I also added the wish to become famous because the donkey in the first one really wanted to be a musician even though he is a donkey. Being a youtube famous donkey is actually a lot more common than a musical donkey.

Bibliography: The Brothers Grimm. "The Traveling Musicians." Librivox. Original Story

Reading Diary Week 13 Brothers Grimm

The Frog Prince
-The frog kind of tricks her into letting him become her pet because he gets her ball for him
-this is like the third princess with a golden ball that I have seen in the classic fairy tales
-NOT a kiss,  eating from her plate and sleeping in her bed three nights
-marriage happens. happiness and riches too.

Rapunzel
-More about the parents than I have ever heard.
-The prince stays the night for quite some time, resulting in some babies later.
-The witch cuts off her hair and moves her from the forest to the desert, never seen that
-He jumped out of the window of the tower, barely surviving but being blinded, so dramatic
-eventually he wanders to the desert and finds Rapunzel and their children

The Straw, The Coal, and The Bean
-Inanimate objects come to life and go on an adventure
-Like the Brave Little Toaster but with more food
-They all die anyway
-I actually thought it was really funny

The Mouse, The Bird, and The Sausage
-Each had a job, one gets jealous
-The illustration of a sausage cooking gets weird quick
-Death

The Traveling Musicians
-Donkey, dog, cat, rooster, run away to become musicians
-and so they aren't put down
-they beat up robbers, so basically they are rock stars

Clever Elsie
-I do not understand
-They are not clever, but they think they are
-marriage
-Dude tricks her into thinking she is not herself by changing her out of her clothes


Briar Rose
- Sleeping Beauty
-It starts out basically how I remember it
-The entire castle and its inhabitants fall asleep instead of just her
-For 100 years!
-the prince didn't even have to do anything, he just happened to show up when everyone was waking up
-He still kissed her, but it was not magical





Read the stories.

Essay Week 12

The Different Cinderella Stories

There's no fairy godmother in these versions. Oliver Herford. Image info.

I have noticed that in a lot of fairy tales in this class, the original story is much more violent and sad than the version that I am used to hearing as a kid. Generally, the story has been changed so that it is appropriate for children. On the other hand, there are some points of the stories that I think should have stayed the same and teach a much better lesson than the Disney version. In this unit there were several different versions of the Cinderella story that I think had parts that should have been in the movie.

The most differing one that still counts as a Cinderella story is Tattercoats. I realize that this story would be changing the entire plot almost, but it deserves to be done in one of the more modern versions in a play or musical or even live action movie. The biggest difference here is that is for the good is that she decides to walk to the ball with her friend the shepherd (who plays a magical flute) and meets the prince on the road before the party even starts. The shepherd as the fairy godmother figure is cool because he does not do anything magical until the very end. The prince falls in love with her when she is in rags and dirty and still walking barefoot of a dirt road. He convinces his parents that this girl is to be his wife, and when he says that the shepherd transforms her clothing into a wonderful gown. This message says the girl can get a prince no matter what her clothes are, and it has a cool little thing about friendship.

The next Cinderella story in the unit was Rushen Coatie. This one was nice because it was just a little different of a setting. This girl was not sad about not going to some grand ball. She just wanted to look nice and go to the Christmas church services. She had no intentions of meeting a prince or falling in love with someone who would take her away from her slave driving stepfamily, but in the end she was still rewarded with those things.

The last story of this kind in the unit, Catskin, had some really good parts and some parts that I really would not put in a movie. Like Tattercoats, it featured a father who vowed never to look upon his daughter’s face because the mother had died in childbirth and he was being weird. When the child grows up, she is to be married off to the first person that asks. Obviously this does not go well and some creepy old man asks her when she is like twelve. Instead of magic wishes, she barters with her parents for three very fancy, very beautiful dresses and one ugly catskin. She runs away from creepy old guy, hides the fancy dresses in the forest, and becomes a maid. Now, when the ball comes up years later, she does not need magic because she is prepared. She dresses herself up for three different nights of the ball, making the prince fall in love with her. The best part though, is that after they have been married and have kids, they find her father, who would give anything to see her and they reconcile.

So, Cinderella is a great story, but with so many different options to work with, I would have thought there could be better messages sent to the audience.

Read the stories.

Storytelling Week 12

The Three Wishes

Once upon a time, there lived a man and his wife deep in the forested hills of Kentucky. They lived off the land the most they could, but sometimes they would travel to town and barter. The man was quite good at woodworking, so he often cut down trees and turned them to planks to barter. This particular day, he found an especially wide tree and he thought of how many good planks he could make from this one tree. As he was sharpening his axe, a fairy appeared and begged him not to cut down the tree. See, it was her home. She had just remodeled the fungi to match the fall leaves, so there was no way she was going to move again. The fairy was trying everything she could think of to stop the mountain man and finally she got his attention when she promised to grant his three wishes.

To a normal man or woman, three wishes seems like it would have all the possibilities in the world. However, fairies know from experience that people never really end up wishing for anything of much consequence. The man gladly accepted his reward and hurried home to tell his wife. His home was not very far away, but he was so excited that he was very eager to get there. He thought to himself, "I wish I was already home so I could tell my wife about the wishes!" Before he even had the chance to wonder about whether or not thinking a wish would result in the actual wishing, he was in his chair at the kitchen table in his log cabin.

His wife mentioned something about not hearing him come in, and he ignored her and immediately explained the situation. The woman could not believe what she was hearing and she wanted proof. Without much thought to the consequences, she said aloud "Well, if this is true, then I wish that you had a pig's nose! Hahaha!" As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she saw her husband transformed. His once ugly but human nose was now a big, flat, pink snout! She could not contain her giggling, which became infectious and he let out surprisingly loud snorts of laughter. Both of them were so joyful that they almost overlooked the fact that the man could be stuck with a pig nose forever. After some short conversation, the man quickly wished for his old nose again, and the wishes were spent. The man smiled at his wife and said, "Well, at least we will have a good story to tell..."

Adventure Time pig. Image info.

Authors Note: This is based on the poem "The Three Wishes" from the more English fairy tales unit. The story is almost the same, but the wasted wishes are slightly different. The man first wishes for a sausage, then the wife joking wishes his nose into the sausage, and then for the sausage to come off his face. I just thought it was a nice little story.

Read the story.

Week 12 Reading Diary: More English Fairy Tales

Pied Piper
-Pied piper is actually evil.
-Pay your debts or your children will become wild forest people

The Golden Ball
-Two sisters take strange jewelry from old man and bring harm upon themselves. big surprise
-Boyfriends will gladly cut off limbs of giants to save your life

Tattercoats
-Neglected orphan because her mom died in birth and her grandpa hates her
-Its basically opposite of Cinderella
-Prince falls in love with her while she is still in rags and on the way to the ball
-much sweeter story

Johnny Gloke
-Outsmarted two giants and gained reputation and such as a great warrior and married a princess
-He is like Mr. Bean but it ends up working and squashing a rebellion

Scrapefoot
-Its goldilocks but scrape foot is a fox and the bears live in a castle
-I wonder how this story got changed from a fox to a little girl
-I think I like the little girl better though

The Old Witch
-Two sisters
-One helps strangers on a passage and the other doesn't
-The one who helped gets money and a husband and the other gets nothing
-It is like the good Samaritan but without actually being good because they both steal money

The Three Wishes
-Forest Fairy
-Wish one- A sausage? or pudding?
-Wish two- nose as long as the sausage
-Wish three- nose back to normal
-I feel like this is how my wishes would also accidentally go

The Children in The Wood
-Poem style
-Rhymes almost every other line
-Classic uncle tries to kill nephew and niece for their inheritance
-Hires two thugs to kill them, but one kills the other then leaves the kids in the forest to die, and they do.
-Uncle gets haunted and everyone dies

King John and the Abbott of Canterbury
-What is the center of the world? How long will it take to go around the world? What am I thinking?
-King John is annoying
-Good shepherd saves the day

Rushen Coatie
-Cinderella
-instead of a ball, it is church on Christmas
-instead of a fairy, it is a red, magic cow
-Three days in a row
-not as long as some Cinderella stories
-includes songs

The King of the Cats
-old couple have a cat who inherits the throne and runs away
-weird and short, but quite enjoyable

The Stars in the Sky
-Children's story
-repetitive of the same question and the answers with the same cadence
-ridiculous and it was a dream

The Little Bull-Calf
-this one is told as if it is just someone reading aloud and adding in their own side commentary
-awesome cows, dragons, magical cow bladder weaponry
-Killing dragons and getting princesses

Old Mother Wiggle Waggle
-Poetry
-AAAB
-likely was sung
-Foxes, ducks and goose

Catskin
-Similar to Tattercoats but the mom does not die
-Married off to first that asks, its a gross old man
-Ran away after asking for a bunch of things like a catskin coat
-became a maid
-Three balls, three dresses, three clues to who she was
-they said the word slut...
-This one ends much happier with reconciliation of the father who would do anything to see his daughter just once. Much better story.

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