Mythology and Folklore

( 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 o...

( 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 alo...

  ( 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...

( Compound Microscope by Acagastya Before taking this class, I had never heard about microfictions before. I had the opportunity to read a few this semester with the random readings we do to leave comments. I feel like this style of storytelling is pretty refreshing. It boils the fiction down into just one concept. This makes it a lot more focused. I really like the example that the NPR transcript gave: "For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn." (from Talk of the Nation ) I read the Tiny Tales of Nasruddin  by Laura Gibbs. I chose to read these partially because Laura had recommended them to me before at the beginning of the semester. I really enjoyed how witty and quick-thinking Nasruddin is, even if his solutions aren't always correct or appropriate. I think what I learned from experiencing these stories is that you need to try to strip away a lot of the fluff and unnecessary detail. like the story I referenced before, you don't know anything about who is selling the shoe...

( Flamingos by Valdiney Pimenta) The Queen's Croquet Ground by Lewis Carroll: Characters:  Alice, Queen of Hearts, King of Hearts, Cheshire Cat Alice: Still seems to insert herself in other's business.  Queen of Hearts: Needs to have things going her way. Is very powerful and the Matriarch seems to have the power in this world. King of Hearts: Tries to keep the Queen kind of reasonable, but usually it doesn't work out that way.  Cheshire Cat: a source of chaos. can phase into and out of reality. maybe related to Obito Plot:  Alice has left the teas party that was with the Hatter and the March Hare. She sees a garden and some playing cards painting roses red. They tell her it's because the Queen wanted red and they made a mistake. The Queen arrives with her precession and orders the cards heads be cut off. Alice hides them so they're safe. She then goes and plays croquet with the Queen. The clubs are made with a live flamingo and the balls are hedgehogs. This is con...

( Rabbit Hole by Richard Webb   Down the Rabbit Hole by Lewis Carrol: Characters: Alice, Sister, Rabbit Alice: Young girl, very curious, her mind wanders a lot, should really be more cautious, but does not seem to care much. Sister: very very inattentive. needs to pay more attention to where her sister has been.  Rabbit: not a punctual person. should work on time-management.  Plot:  Alice is sitting outside her house with her sister. The sister is busy reading a book that looks really boring to Alice because it has no pictures or conversations. She is thinking about making a flower crown but sees a rabbit. This rabbit is very flustered because he is late for something and checks the time on his pocket watch that he got from his waistcoat. Alice thinks this is weird so she tries to tail the rabbit. this leads her to the rabbit hole and she just jumps in. She then starts to fall. She falls for a very long time. There are cupboards all around her and she doesn't know ...

  Coyote's Plan A long time ago, before there were food webs before there were predators, and before there was prey. Kareya was creating the beings of the world. He sat and created Man and all the animals. For a time they all existed together equally. No one knew who was more powerful than who and who would be eaten by who. This left the world in great chaos. There was no order and no one could eat. Eventually, Kareya decided to have Man create Bows and Arrows for all the animals. These would decide who was most powerful and who would be hunted by who. Man began to make the bows. It took 9 full days of nonstop work to craft them all.  Before the day the bows were to be given out, all the animals gathered together for one last night before they were given their power. Everyone was here from the large cougar to the tiny frog. They all gathered around the fire and prepared for the night. The Coyote, though, had other plans. He wanted to stay up and be the first to receive the gre...

( Coyote by V.J. Anderson) The Fable of The Animals  by Katharine Berry Judson:  Characters:  Kareya, Man, Coyote. Kareya:  The creator God of the Karok people. Creates the other creatures and tells them what to do.  Man: Has to give the animals bows and arrows representing how much strength they will have in the world. Is given a lot of room for interpretation for how he allocates power. Coyote: Wants to be very powerful. Is also quite clever and smart. Cunning even. Plot: Many years ago, Kareya is sitting not the Great Stool, and is creating the world. After creating the many creatures, there is no order and everyone is equally powerful. No one knew who would be eaten by who and who would be eaten by Man. Kareya then gave Man a task. He would create Bows and arrows of different sizes to determine how powerful they are and demonstrate who would be more powerful than who. Man worked many nights to create these bows for all the animals. Coyote was extremely exci...