Storytelling Week 9: A Gentle Giant

Talat-adega was the most feared lake monster of them all.  He had a long body and an even longer tail but worst of all he had ten legs.  Talat-adega was fully equipped with horns and spikes and was even capable of electric shock.  Though he was rarely seen, all the fish in the lake knew of him and knew how dangerous he was.  The only problem was, the fish never saw Talat-adega in action, they only heard the rumors that surrounded him.

One small school of fish in the lake were all talking about the legends of Talat-adega.  One fish spoke of a tale he had heard of the terrifying lake monster. 

“One time, my brother was out swimming through the lake and heard the cries of a poor fisherman not too far away.  He was confused at first because he didn’t know if the fisherman was crying out of excitement from catching a fish or worse, was being taken under by Talat-adega.  Reluctant, the fish swam closer towards the action so he could see what was going on.  When he got close enough that he could see, he swore he saw the lake monster leap out of the water, grab the fisherman by the head, and submerge him into the lake, never to resurface again.  My brother was so scared by the monster that he swam away as fast as he could but he didn’t make it.  The monster killed him before he could make it back home,” he recalled.

All of the fish in the school were terrified by the story and thought if they ever saw the lake monster, they too would be doomed. 

Out of nowhere, one lone fish swam by after overhearing the story of the lake monster killing the fisherman.  The fish said to everyone, “You are all mistaken.  The lake monster isn’t even a monster at all; in fact, he is here to help us.  He is a protector.  His goal is to prevent fisherman from catching us and eating us up!  The story you told of your brother, was not true.  I was there and saw the whole thing.  The lake monster only scared the fisherman away, he didn’t kill him.  And as for Talat-adega killing your brother, it wasn’t he that did it.  Scared by what he saw, your brother swam so fast, constantly looking over his shoulder, that he hit a rock and died immediately.” 

After hearing the truth about the lake monster, the fish were relieved and even wanted to thank him for his services of protecting the smaller fish that sometimes can’t defend themselves.  So off they went, the whole school of fish, to thank Talat-adega for protecting them and to say sorry for thinking he was such a bad guy for so long.  

School of fish

Authors Note: This story was inspired by Origin of Rivers in Queen Charlotte Islands.  In the story, a monster, Talat-adega is mentioned and I chose to turn him into a gentle giant as a lake monster.  I wanted the monster to actually be a protector instead of dangerous because lake monsters have a bad name and maybe they are just trying to look out for their own.  Who knows! Myths and Legends of British North America by Katharine Berry Judson (1917).  

Reading Diary B: British North America unit

I was a little bit disappointed in the second half of the unit, British North America this week.  Since I enjoyed the first half so much, I assumed that the second half would be similar but the stories were more about animals than the earth and moon.  Not that the stories were bad, I was just anticipating similar stories to what I read before. 

One story I did enjoy from the second half of the reading was the story Wolverene and Rock.  I found it funny that when the Wolverene got run over by the rolling rock and then the rock became stuck right on top of him, the other wolves and foxes told him that he got what he deserved for challenging a rock to run after him.  I’m not quite sure why when Wolverene called for his brother Thunder and Lightning that it tore Wolverene’s coat to pieces when he struck the rock into tiny pieces but it was humorous anyways. 

Another story I liked was Turtle and Thunder.  I think I might retell this story for my storytelling post this week because I liked how it incorporated so many different animals in the story.  And I also like how it told the story of why the turtle stays in the water when there is a thunderstorm. 

I wish that throughout this unit, there were more images.  Though they aren't always illustrations from the actual stories themselves, I still enjoy looking at them when I go from story to story.  

Lighting Source: kpbs.org

Reading Diary A: British North America Unit

For this week’s reading diary, I chose to read the British North America unit.  The first story I read, Beliefs, was very interesting to me and made me look forward to reading the rest of the stories in this unit.  I like the belief of there being five worlds, one above the other and the middle being Earth.  Each world had its own name like Afraid of Nothing, House of the Son, and Ghost Land.  The forth one, didn't have a specific name but it was the home of those who die a second time.  One aspect of the story I really liked was that in order to reach upper heaven, one must pass through the House of the Sun and one must pass through the great hole to reach the upper world. 

This unit, in my opinion, has been very different from some of the other ones I've read and I appreciate that about these stories.  Another one of my favorite from this unit was the story of the Creation of Earth.  I like how Earth Woman changed into the earth we live on now.  The story said that, “Her hair became flowers and grass.  Her bones are the rocks.  Earth is never alone now, because she can always see Sun.”  I thought this story was an interesting take on how Earth became what it is now and how the sun and the stars and the moon became where they are. 

I particularly liked the stories in this unit pertaining to the moon and the stars.  I hadn't heard stories like these before so they were new to me and I was interested in learning more.  

Moon and the stars

Extra Reading Diary: Nigeria Unit

For the extra reading diary this week, I chose to read some of the stories from the Nigeria unit.  I thought the story of Why the Bat flies by Night was kind of demented but overall had a funny ending as to why the bat only flies at night.  The overall plot and theme of the story was strange just because the animals essentially boiled themselves into the soup and that’s why it tasted so good. 

I like how a lot of these stories kind of propose the answer to a question in the title.  It lets you know what the story is going to be about and how it went about being that way.  One of the stories I wanted to know the answer to was Why the Fish lives in the Water or The Fish and the Leopard’s Wife.  I thought it was strange that it was a fish and a leopard making love in the story because it just sounds weird but it was an interesting story.  I still don’t think it explained that well why the fish needed to live in the water though.  But I thought the punishment of man or animal should kill and eat the fish whenever they could catch them strangely familiar since so many people fish all the time.  It kind of set up a different reasoning as to why people fish. 

Another thing I learned from this unit was what African driver ants were.  I had never seen them before and I thought the image that went along with the Why Worms Live underneath the Ground story was fascinating so I did a little bit of research and looked at even more images.  To me, they look like a cross between a spider and an ant, my worst enemy.

Driver Ant by Alex Wild 

  

Storytelling Week 7: Justice is Served

After many long and difficult months, Sam the squirrel succeeded in producing the largest farm in the village.  Since he was a squirrel, he did not need a road to access his farm, only trees that were long enough to jump back and forth to.  

Sam returned home to gather his family so that they could all return together to the farm and begin to pick his ripe harvests.  But when they returned, they noticed, little by little, that their harvest was slowly disappearing.  Unable to figure out what was happening to it, Sam thought maybe he was just seeing things and that there was just as much harvest there as there was before.  The family continued to work, picking the ripe corn until the wife noticed that indeed, the harvest was smaller.  

The family looked and looked for hours, unable to find who was stealing all their hard work.  Suddenly, Sam saw a small black creature running through the fields, stealing all of his harvest.  He noticed, this small black creature was a very snappy spider.  In his angriest squirrel voice, Sam shouted, "You there, what are you doing in my field, picking all my harvest?  

The spider responded, "These fields are mine for I have been coming here for weeks and there is no road leading up to it."

The Squirrel did not know, however, that in order for a farm to be considered yours, it had to have a road leading up to it.  Though he told the spider he did not need roads for the farm to be his, he was surely mistaken.  And by that, the spider gathered all the harvest he could fit into bags and left the farm bone dry.  The squirrel and his family had nothing to eat and of their hard work went to waste.  

The thieving spider didn't even need the harvest he just stole from Sam but only wanted to sell it at ten times its cost.  As he made his way down to the market to gather what was not entitled to him, a strong wind storm came through and the bag of corn flew out of the spider’s hands.  As the wind picked up the back and nearly set it down a little ways down the road, a hawk swooped in and stole the back from right under the spider’s nose.  

Spider shouted, "That is my bag, hawk.  You cannot just steal it from me."

But the hawk knew, the hawk had been watching and he replied with, "But spider, I watched what happened down at Sam's house.  I was perched high up in the trees and I watched you steal all that harvest from a good, hardworking squirrel.  You cannot be rewarded with the work you stole from another man."

And off the hawk went, far out of the spider’s sight.  And so later that night, when Sam had made his way back home, sad and hungry, the family went to sleep.  But the next morning, when Sam went back to his farm, there he saw all of his harvest returned.  Though he didn't know who returned it all back to him, in the corner of his eye, way up in the trees, he saw a hawk, perched on a branch, overlooking the whole thing. 

Hawk on a branch 

Author’s Note: I chose to retell the story of The Squirrel and the Spider this week.  While I was reading the original story, I really liked how the beginning played out but wished that in the end, the squirrel would get his harvest back so that's how I changed the story.  I didn't want the spider to reap the benefits of something he didn't work for so in the end, the hawk returned the justice to the squirrel and everything worked out.  I wanted to change the crow into a hawk because it seemed like more of a protector.  When I think of a crow, I think dirty and mean and I didn’t want that portrayed in my story.  When I first read the story, I thought it was interesting how the farm couldn’t be yours unless you had a street that ran up to it.  It seemed like a silly rule to have in order to claim property that is yours.  One of the things I particurarly liked about the story was that instead of the characters being humans, like a more typical story, they were all animals and insects.  You wouldn’t expect the characters to be like that in a typical story. West African Folktales by William H. Barker and Cecilia Sinclair with drawings by Cecilia Sinclair (1917).  

Reading Diary B: West African Folktales

While reading the second half of the West African Folktales unit, one of my favorite stories was How the Tortoise Got Its Shell.  I thought it was fun story that I imagine, people told to their children growing up.  I liked how originally, he was just a tortoise without a shell and after all those months of lying underneath the trees, he had collected so much dust and earthenware pot that he formed a shell on his back.  I enjoyed the way it ended too, with the tortoise coming back to life but never being able to walk upright again due to his newly formed shell. 

There was a quote from another story that I found to be pretty true.  It was from The Hunter and the Tortoise and it read, “It is man who forces himself on things, not things which force themselves on him.”  The stories always seem more appealing to me when they contain a message that I feel I can relate to.  Like this one, I agree that it is man or woman who forces themselves on things and not the other way around.  Not only did I just like this quote but I also enjoyed the story overall, too. 

I thought that the story of The Leopard and the Ram was an unlikely one.  Typically, you don’t think of Rams and Leopards getting along, let alone living together, in this case.  But I thought that it was fun how they unknowingly picked the same site to build a home.  I definitely liked the first half of this story better than the second but still enjoyed the writing.  

Gopher Tortoise Source: fws.gov

Reading Diary A: West African Folktales

For this week’s reading diary, I decided to read the stories of the West African Folktales.  How Wisdom Became the Property of the Human Race was one of my favorite stories from the first half of the unit.  At the end, the son of Father Anansi tries to climb a tree to place his pot of wisdom there but struggles and is unable until his son gives him a piece of advice to make it easier.  Right after, there was a quote from the Father that I really liked, “I thought I had all the world’s wisdom in this pot.  But I find you possess more than I do.  All my wisdom was insufficient to show me what to do, yet you have been able to tell me.”  I think that everyone knows something that someone else doesn’t and through your own experiences, you learn how to do things more efficiently or better and I liked in the story, how it was the son who gave his father the advice. 

Another story I liked from the unit was The Squirrel and the Spider.  I always like stories of people who do wrong not coming out on top because I don’t think they deserve it.  However, if I were to rewrite this story as my own for the storytelling post, I would change the ending so that the squirrel got his load back since he was the one who dug and sowed and planted them. 

I liked all the stories in the first half of the unit and found it interesting that a majority of them contained spider stories.  I absolutely hate spiders and these stories only remind me of how sneaky they are.  

Squirrel