Mythology and Folklore

 This site was really interesting! I had a lot of fun browsing through the articles and such. The first one I read was the clothes make the character. That was interesting to me, because I think that applies more for a tv show than for a book. I have not mentioned clothes a single time in any of the stories in my Storybook project. However, there is an emphasis on clothing in books with things like livery or family seals or such. In Game of Thrones, for instance, the different houses wear their house colors and sigils, and that is how we differentiate groups of people. Or in Harry Potter, where they wear cloaks in the wizarding world and ‘regular’ clothes in the muggle world. I also liked the articles about how to describe different things without using the same words over and over. I tend to lose words when I write for some reason, or I will know the word that I need but not be able to think of it, so these articles would be a great help. I really liked this site!     ...

Bibliography: The Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales The Fox and the Cat A fox meets a cat. The cat is nice, the fox is arrogant and the fox dies because he sought out hunting dogs to teach the cat something. The cat climbed a tree but the fox could not. The Little Lamb and the Little Fish There was a brother and a sister who had an evil stepmother. She cursed them, and turned the brother into a fish and the sister into a lamb. The brother and sister were eventually turned back by a wise woman and they lived happily ever after. Simeli Mountain There was a poor brother and a rich brother. The rich brother did not give the poor brother anything. One day, the poor brother saw twelve mountain men open up a mountain, and he did the same. Inside the mountain were many riches. The poor brother took the gold home and made a life for his family. The rich brother found out, opened the mountain, and got stuck. The mountain men k...

 Bibliography: Dan Ashliman's Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales Cat And Mouse In Partnership                There was a male cat and a female mouse who lived together and put away a pot of fat to store in the church. They wanted to save it for winter. The cat ate the fat without the mouse, and when the mouse called him on it, he at her too, as it is ‘the way of the world’.   The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids                A wolf swallowed six young goats whole, and the seventh told the mother what had happened. The mother and the youngest came upon the sleeping wolf and cut open his stomach, freeing her children. She then put rocks in his stomach and sewed it back up, and when the wolf went to get a drink, he drowned.   The Seven Ravens            ...

                                                         King O'Toole Celtic Fairy Tales  by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1892).   King O’Toole and His Goose             King O’Toole had a goose that was keeping him busy in his old age, but soon the goose got old as well. Saint Kevin blessed the goose, and the King gave him the land the goose flew over.   The Shee An Gannon and the Gruagach Gaire             The Shee An Gannon asked a King for his daughter’s hand in marriage. The King gave him the task of finding out why the goblin stopped laughing. There were twelve iron spikes, eleven of them filled with the heads of princes who had failed in this task, and the twelfth would be open fo...

  Bibliography: Celtic Fairy Tales  by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1892). Connla and the Fairy Maiden             Connla of the Fiery Hair is taken to the land of the fairy by a fairy maiden. His father, the King, Conn of the Hundred Fights, tried to get a Druid to stop it but couldn’t.   The Field of Boliauns             Tom Fitzpatrick took a leprechaun captive and made said leprechaun show him where gold was buried. Tom tied a red garter to the spot the leprechaun had indicated and went home to get a spade after making the leprechaun swear not to touch the garter. When he came back, the leprechaun was gone but had tied red garters over all the trees in the fields.   The Horned Women             Twelve witches, the first with one horn and the last with twelve, cam...

  The power of creative constraints: Constraints aren’t the boundaries of creativity, but the foundation of it.   What makes a hero?: Talks about the monomyth, and the things that heroes go through. ‘A hero with a thousand faces’   How to build a fictional world: There are stories all around you all the time. Whether or not you tell them is up to you   What Orwellian really means:   Language plays an extremely important role in what we believe/thing/do/say.   What makes something Kafkaesque?: We rely on increasingly convoluted systems of administration which have very real impacts on our lives. The world we live in is one we create, and therefore, can change for the better.   How to write descriptively: There are many reasons to write. The point of fiction is to transport someone directly into the story.   Beware of nominalizations (zombie nouns): Nouns made from other parts of speech are nominalizations. They cannibalize t...

                                                        King Arthur King Arthur: Tales of the Round Table by Andrew Lang Sir Galahad and the White Knight                Sir Galahad came upon a white abbey, and found a white shield that would kill whoever picked it up unless he was the worthiest knight in the world. Sir Galahad proceeded to do many great deeds.   Sir Lancelot’s Vision                Sir Lancelot was not a pure knight, unlike his son, and he had to give up the quest for the Holy Graal   The Adventure of Sir Percivale                Sir Percivale loses a fight, pitches a fit, and makes friends with a lion...

King Arthur: Tales of the Round Table by Andrew Lang The Drawing of the Sword After King Uther died, England was thrown into chaos. Merlin declared that whoever could draw the sword from the stone would be King. Needing a sword for his brother, Kay, Arthur drew the sword from the stone and became the rightful King of England.                                          The Sword in the Stone Sculpture The Questing Beast                Knight Pellinore, who had been chasing a beast for nearly a year, stole a horse from the King and challenged him to catch the Knight. Merlin came along and prophesied Arthur’s death by his nephew.   The Sword Excalibur                How Arthur got Excalibur from the Lady in the Lake   The...

                 Hestia, who once was one of the twelve Olympians before she gave up her seat to keep harmony in Olympus, regarded her Temple with a careful eye. Her Temple was a humble one, for Hestia was the goddess of hearth and home, and had no need for the gold and statues the other gods favored. No priestesses had been here for quite some time, and it was extremely apparent. Something had happened in the city near her—Hestia was not sure what—and everyone had left quite quickly. The doors to her Temple had been left open, and all sorts of things had blown in. Cobwebs and dust were present on nearly every surface, and the fire in the hearth had long since blown out.   Hestia sighed, pursing her lips. She would deal with this tomorrow. It had been a long day for her, and even goddesses got tired. As she turned, she saw a very small person making their way into her Temple. Though, all people were small to Olympians (and she was...

  Bibliography:   Myths and Legends of the Great Plains  by Katharine Berry Judson (1913) The Ghost and the Traveler Teton There was a man who was at the edge of a forest during a storm. He waited and noticed a light in the forest after it got dark. He followed it and found a sweat lodge with two ghosts in it. The man fled but the ghosts followed. He heard a woman cry out, and thought of her, and a woman appeared. She had no legs, but she kept up with the man all the same. The man feared her, and the woman vanished.   The Man Who Shot a Ghost Teton A man who was traveling alone killed several rabbits. He made a fire and cooked one of the rabbits. He heard a great many people talking and figured they must be ghosts. A ghost kicked the man, so the man shot him. The ghost went off to find the rest of them, and the man found bones at the base of a tree.   The India Who Wrestled With a Ghost There was a young man who had to spend the night in the ...

Bibliography:  Judson's  Myths and Legends of the Great Plains    The Creation Osage (Wazhá zhe group) The Sun is their father and the moon their mother. They were sent down to Earth, but it was covered in water. They called to the Elk, who is responsible for revealing the land on Earth and for the first crops.   Osage (Hoga group) Same beginning. The Elk made a little space for them on the rocks, but they knew they would need more room. Crawfish swam down and came back up with mud in his claws, which was used to make the land.   Sacred Legend The people were born in water. Eventually, they came up to land, only they were poor and cold. They made clothes for themselves out of grass, and chipped stones for hunting weapons. Eventually, they discovered fire. They got bored of roasted meat and evented clay pots, so they could boil their meat. They kept the hides from the animals they killed and started making clothes out of them. They used buffa...