Myths and Folklore Blog

 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...

 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...

  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'...