Myths and Folklore Blog

My father fashions us wings of wax, reed, and feathers. One brilliant invention, to escape the “payment” of another. “Icarus listen to me,” he warns, “becoming complacent and allowing yourself to sink too close to the sea will make your wings too heavy to fly. Flying too high will melt the wax. You must fly between these two extremes my son. Follow my lead and do not stray, or you will surely perish.” I nod, but I find I cannot focus on the warning in his words, nor can I comprehend the danger he speaks of. My mind is too occupied with the idea of freedom from this tower. My father departs, flying out the window, and I follow. It is incredible. The wind rushes through my fingers as well as my wings, and I can smell the salt of the sea better than I ever could in that tower. I am a bird let out of its cage for the first time and I feel invincible. I look to the sun, admiring the beauty of shining Helios and his chariot. I yearn to be closer to him, to feel his warm embrace, he who bring...

  Bibliography: "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp" Arabian Nights  by Andrew Lang. Story Source . Notes "My boy likes to play, guess I'll die," Aladdin's father, apparently. oh never mind, I guess he is an adult and also lazy? It is kind of vague. so that is a lot to retell could cut some from the beginning, skip right to Aladdin going to the cave could also cut the evil magician's younger brother, since that does not really add much besides making the genie leave I guess the vizier and his also does not add much to the story honestly the story this week will probably be the one I found in part A (Image Information: Oil Lamp: Wikimedia Commons ) -A.

  Bibliography: "King of the Black Isles" from Arabian Nights  by Andrew Lang. Story Source. Notes There's a few things I would change in this story. I don't really like the fact that the prince we are supposed to sympathize had a slave and mortally injured him. That is pretty messed up. also the wife being his cousin is a big yikes like, I don't think she should die for wanting to save her lover and get revenge on the man that hurt him. so, either I should change the protagonist, or the antagonist  Oh, what if the enchantress is keeping the prince's consort under a spell to keep him asleep maybe she was in love with him, but he was in love with the prince so she cursed them both that's a much better story (Image Information: Dr. Seuss fish; from Pixy ) -A.

 I think I am going to use two sources for my story information: The Project Gutenberg EBook of Myths of the Cherokee  by James Mooney. Source . Myths and Tales of the Southeastern Indians by John R. Swanton. Source . The first one is for most of my actual story information, whereas I think the second one would be more useful for ideas. For example, I noticed that myths involving opossum usually also reference wolf or terrapin.  I think for the stories I want to retell "Why the Possum's Tail is Bare," "The Pleiades and the Pine," and "How the Turtle's Back was Cracked." I also would like to create a story to explain opossum's Cherokee name, but I am still not sure how to portray pig, as there aren't many stories about pig. As for structure I think the stories will reference each other and be in chronological order, but will otherwise stand alone. I think the story I am creating could be one that opossum tells to one of the Pleiades (who in...

  (Image Information: Opossum on a Branch; Wikimedia Commons ) Storybook: Opossum Tales -A.

 As much as I wanted to give Icarus a happy ending, I could not resist the siren's call of the story lab videos. The TV Tropes was a tempting one, as I am a fan of perusing that site, but the TED Talks grabbed my attention first and felt like they would provide more benefit for me. I think I will definitely be doing another story lab in the future; this one was a lot of fun. The first TED Talk I watched was The Danger of a Single Story  by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I must confess that I have actually watched this TED Talk before for another class (Native American Music), but it is very good and the speaker is very charismatic so I watched it again. I love the message and the anecdotes are hilarious, albeit cringe-inducing due to the secondhand embarrassment. She introduces herself as a storyteller and I find that description apt. She reminds me a lot of the Cherokee storytellers I've met with the way she talks to her audience and with the tone of her overall talk. The message ...

  Notes Pygmalion is another interesting one and I get that the gods turned Galatea into a human but what if she were kept a statue? did Pygmalion make a proportional person, or was she made like Michelangelo's David, meant to look proportional based on perspective? what if her eyes were still like stone? solid gray-white eyes whose gaze would terrify I like to think Pygmalion would still love her, after getting over the initial horror like if Victor Frankenstein was not a coward I once made a squash plant like that. Its leaves were green with splotches of white, and it climbed the garden fence like a vine. She bore female flowers and I named her Lilith. Her fruit had two skins, yellow over green, and was especially vulnerable to the elements in spite of this, for both skins were delicate. Thus they had to be harvested quickly, and were relatively small. The seeds were half-formed, so it would have been impossible for her to bear a child plant. I must admit she frightened me at fir...

  Notes Icarus is one in need of a happy ending I think. As a child I had a huge book full of children's stories. One of those big fancy hardcovers with the pages golden around the edges. It had a retelling of this story, but from Icarus's point of view. I remember he had marveled at the sun after being in the tower for so long. I remember him describing how warm it was on his back, how he wanted to get closer to that warmth. I have no idea what possessed whoever wrote that to just make it so much sadder. "drawn by desire for the heavens" Icarus, trust me, dating Apollo never goes well. didn't even get a flower named after him for his trouble, just a sea and an island. I think Icarus should get to have nice things like Apollo, and his sun chariot Or Helios, those two kind of got blended together  (Daedalus and Icarus by Antonio Canova: Wikimedia Commons ) Bibliography: "Daedalus and Icarus" from Ovid's Metamorphoses translated by Tony Kline. Story So...

 The first article I read about giving feedback was How to Give Bad Feedback Without Being a Jerk  by Adam Grant. I agreed with him that sandwiching negative feedback between positive feedback makes the positive sound disingenuous. I think sincerity is important when giving feedback. I also felt that it was good advice to "take yourself off a pedestal" when giving feedback. I always worry that the person I am giving feedback to will feel like I am being condescending. The second article I read was  How to Provide Great Feedback When You’re Not In Charge  from Farnam Street Media. I felt that it brought up a good point when saying it was important to think of how you are giving feedback and what the intended purpose is. I liked that they broke down feedback into three categories and stated when it was best to use each category. I think it is important when giving feedback to consider which method best fits your intended goal. I've always been hesitant to give feedback...

 Stories Source: Myths of the Cherokee  by James Mooney. The Project Gutenberg eBook . I actually planned to write this yesterday, but I got so caught up reading all of the myths (even ones unrelated to my topic) that it was past midnight by the time I finished. There were a few things in the book that surprised me reading through it, but I will get to those when I talk about the story ideas. Surprisingly, the Cherokee in the book was difficult for me to read because it was spelled like how you would say it. For example,  spelling opossum  as sĭkwă utse′tstĭ instead of siqua utsetsasdi. I am so used to pronunciation being common knowledge that it is strange to see otherwise. Of course, some of the differences could also be a dialect thing. I know the Eastern band spell and pronounce some words differently. In fact, one of the reasons I did not take Cherokee as my required language class is because I speak it with a specific regional accent and language classes usua...

The Odyssea Shanty There once was a man who was lost at sea  And the name of his tale is the odyssey  A tale of hubris and trickery  Go Nobody go  Soon may Odysseus come  To bring sweet wine to a cyclops dumb  One day when the journey is done  He’ll reach Ithaca, his home  Odysseus and crew find land  With fertile soil and giants grand  He gathers an exploring band  To meet his one-eyed foe  Soon may Odysseus come  To bring sweet wine to a cyclops dumb  One day when the journey is done  He’ll reach Ithaca, his home  They find a cave on the isle’s shore  When down on them, a cyclops bore  Their captain called his men and swore  That beast would reap what’s sown  Soon may Odysseus come  To bring sweet wine to a cyclops dumb  One day when the journey is done  He’ll reach Ithaca, his home  Polyphemus maimed and slaughtered  Two of the men for cyclops fodder  And ...

Bibliography: Prisoners of the Cyclops  from "Homer's Odyssey" translated by Tony Kline. Story Source . Notes: So far, the story of Polyphemus is still the most interesting part. I don't think there is much to change besides making the wording better suited to a modern audience. The culture is very clearly pagan and that would need to be explained for a majority Christian audience I think. Things like offerings, and the relationships of deity and devotee. They call Odysseus "scion of Zeus" is there a more modern word that keeps the connotation? The use of epithets is something that I feel is not used very often in more well-known Christian mythology, so that probably needs explained too. Do Hellenist pagans use epithets like Heathens do? Does calling Poseidon "earth-shaker" in this context signify his anger?  If I felt truly masochistic I might try writing it like a poem. We'll see when I get to the retelling. There really is not much to change...

Bibliography: Homer's Odyssey  translated by Tony Kline. Story Source.   Notes Odysseus is a fun character The clever, prideful Odysseus, doomed because he just could not leave well enough alone. I love the story of him tricking Polyphemus I could rewrite it, make some of the dialogue more fitting for a modern audience Still undecided on whether to stop the retelling at Circe's island or before it (Odysseus offering wine to Polyphemus: Wikimedia Commons ) -A.

The first article I read was Silence the Critical Voices in Your Head  by Sabina Nawaz. I thought it was really interesting when it said to focus on positive feedback, as I had never heard that advice before. It makes sense, after all you should know what you're doing right as well as what you are doing wrong, but you never hear that. Almost all feedback in class assignments is negative feedback, and I think we internalize that as the only way we can improve, hence why focusing on positive feedback is harder. This article made me realize that positive feedback can be more helpful sometimes than negative feedback because it helps you have more self-confidence moving forward. The second article was Seven Ways to Crush Self-Doubt in Creative Work  by John Spencer. This was a fun read because many of the tips listed were ones I have found useful in my hobby writing. For instance, he said it was useful for him to have a group he could trust and be vulnerable in front of to share hi...

  First Topic Idea This is the idea I came up with as soon as I realized the final project would be a retelling of a folk story. I have always sympathized with the opossum in the Cherokee legend of Why the Opossum's Tail is Bare , so for the story idea I would like to retell that from the perspective of Opossum. I also would like to incorporate other myths while exploring what happens after the story. Since the legends are meant as lessons, they never really explore Opossum having to adjust to life without fur on his tail (besides telling us that opossum is so ashamed of it that he faints at the notion of anyone seeing his tail). I'd like to include a character from another legend as someone for Opossum to talk to. I was thinking of having him talk to one of the Ani'tsutsa from The Pleiades and the Pine , since they were not involved in the trick pulled on Opossum and would therefore be a relatively neutral party. Of course I would also like to include a nod to Opossum'...

Once upon a time there was a mother and daughter. The mother was going to the market in the next town and asked her daughter what she would like her to bring back. “You don’t have to bring anything for me, Mama,” the daughter told her. “But trips to the market are so rare, I insist on bringing you something,” the mother said. “If you must bring me something,” the daughter said, “I would like three roses. No more, no less.” And with that request in mind, the mother went to the market. Unfortunately, she could not find any roses. Disheartened, the mother bought the rest of what she had gone there to buy and began her journey home. However, night had fallen quickly, and there was no moon to light her path, so she soon became lost. She wandered through the forest, hoping to find something familiar, only to instead stumble upon a castle. She did not recognize it at all, so she started to leave, but stopped when she noticed the bushes of roses growing in the castle’s garden. The roses were a...