Mythology and Folklore

( Tabby cat with blue eyes by Adina Voicu) The Earl of Cattenborough by Joseph Jacobs: Characters: John, Miss Puss, King, Princess John: The youngest of three sons. Inherits only a cat(that can talk!!) Miss Puss: is magic and can talk. Why is he not famous and rich somewhere? Why is he  King: is very impressed by the talking cat. (understandably) should really vet suitors for his daughter more. Should also not get jealous that said cat will be speaking for his master. Plot: A miller and his wife pass away and leave a mill, a donkey, and a cat to their three sons. They each take one thing. The youngest got the cat. The cat vowed to help the son survive and succeed. The cat had a pouch with a string and the boy would put cheese in it. They caught random small mammals and birds. The cat would take the extra catchings and bring them to the king's guard. She would then tell them that it was a gift from the Earl of Cattenborough. This intrigued the King and eventually, he wanted to mee

( Fountain Pen Writing by Petar Milosevic)   For this week's extra reading. I watched the crash course Overview of Mythology videos .  First Video: What is Myth? So this episode was a lot of groundwork to lay out how they're going to be talking about myth. Such as how religion and myth can be a blurry distinction. They're going to treat myth as a collection of stories passed down over time. 'Myth' also has a problem as a word because the myth is generally understood as something that is untrue. 'Myth' comes from the word mythos which is a story.  The actual story discussed was the story of Persephone. She is trapped in hades for 6 months of the year. One month for each pomegranate seed she ate in Hades. This myth explains the seasons because when Persephone is out of Hades there is good weather and growing plants, but otherwise, the world is dying (winter). They want to focus first on creation myths, then pantheons, and finally destruction myths.  Second Vi

  ( BOTW by m4mystery) Arthur? Really? Arthur looked up from the stone, sword in hand. This was the fourth time he had to pull the sword and to be honest, he was getting rather tired of it. The first time, he had just grabbed the sword because his brother had forgotten his sword at home and he couldn't get into his house. The other two were because the people he told about the sword just couldn't believe him. First, he did it in front of his father and brother, who then went to get the magician Merlin and the Archbishop for whom he once again pulled the sword. They had advised that he pull it once against though, this had all happened in the middle of a festival in which the kingdom's greatest knights had gathered to attempt to pull the sword from the stone and claim the kingdom for their own.  He looked around at the faces staring at him in disbelief. Arthur was neither a knight or a squire, so seeing him pull the sword with such ease almost seemed like a trick. Eventuall

( Teardrop Lake by Paul Harrop) The End of Arthur by Andrew Lang:  Characters:  King Arthur, Sir Bedivire, Sir Lancelot King Arthur: Has been mortally wounded. wants to get rid of Excalibur Sir Bedivire: Is crying because he thinks King Arthur is gonna die. Is kind of weak of heart. Sir Lancelot: Is sad that he can not keep seeing his love affair because her husband died and she became a nun. Plot: King Arthur has been mortally wounded and is actively dying on the battlefield. Sir Bedivire is there and crying over his dying body. King Arthur asks him to throw his magic sword, Excalibur, into the water. He agrees and takes the sword to the water. When he gets there, he looks at the sword and sees all of the gems and jewels. He thinks about how it would be a shame for it to be thrown into a lake, so he hides it away and returns to the King. The King knows he hasn't done it though because he asked him to describe what had happened when he threw it in. He tells Sir Bedivire to once a

( Sword in the Stone by Sheila1988   The Drawing of the Sword by Andrew Lang: Characters:  Merlin, Sir Kay, Sir Ector, Arthur Merlin: Is a magician (not a wizard?) goes to the Archbishop of Canterbury to discuss how they are going to figure who is king.  Sir Ector: The father of Sir Kay and the foster father of Arthur Sir Kay: The foster brother of Arthur and a forgetful person. Arthur: The foster son of Sir Ector and is secretly the son of the former king Uther Pendragon Plot:  The King Uther Pendragon has died and this has left the knights and lords in disarray. They don't know who the power is going to go towards and there is chaos. Merlin, a magician, comes to the land and meets the Archbishop of Canterbury. They decide that the King will be the one who is able to pull the sword embedded in the rock by the church. The Knights all agree to this and a date is set for everyone to enter and try their hand at pulling the sword. On this day, Sir Ector and Sir Kay along with Arthur

  ( The Beast Shall Fight Against Them by Phillip Medhurst) For this week I took notes on the Creation and Destruction list of videos by Crash Course . The specific collection I watched was aggregated by Laura Gibbs and can be found here .  First video: Humans and Nature and Creation : There were two ideas discussed in this video. The first was the Biblical idea that Man raised first and that all the animals were created as helpers to mankind. This sets up a power dynamic where man is treated as the default most important/powerful group. This makes the world designed for humans, not necessarily for animals.  The second idea discussed is Native American ones. In these, humans are not usually put above the animals as decidedly as in the Biblical one. Instead, they are shown to be working together with animals. They mentioned how the animals are given agency and intellect in the stories. They have a more active role in the creation of the world and make animals necessary to nature.  Seco