Reading Notes: Canterbury Tales Part A

After reading Part A of the collection of stories known as the "Canterbury Tales," I grew to like the Pardoner's Tale the most. In olden times the person with the title of "pardoner" was a part of the church who would go around the countryside and sell pardons that would forgive the sins of the buyer. These pardons were signed by the bishop himself. In my opinion these pardons sound like they were fake and only were sold to make money for the church or even for the individual themselves. The pardoner in this tales starts off by mentioning a group of three troublesome and rebellious boys. All they cared about was drinking and having fun with no care whatsoever in the world. They did give back to their society or care about anyone in it. One day the group of boys eavesdrop into a conversation about Death and how he keeps killing the people of their village. The tavern keeper also drops the fact that Death lives in the village next door. This makes Death an actual figure and not a figure of speech. Much like my project where Death is personified and is a person, it seems like the same is being done in this tale as well. The group of kids come to the decision that they will take on the task and vanquish Death himself. On their journey to the next village they stumbled upon an elderly man, but knowing the arrogance of the kids they start to make fun of him. Now for some reason the thought that the man might be a spy for Death came across them and they started to intimidate the old man. They demanded to know where Death was. The old man tells them that the path ahead leads straight to Death. The group of men stumbled upon a pile of gold along the road. One of them is sent into the village to get food for the rest while they wait on the gold. They didn't want to be seen taking the gold, so they waited until nightfall. While they were all separated they all plotted in their heads to kill one another and take each others portions of gold. In the end they all end up dead which indicates that Death was their endgame. The ending of this tale had a very nice twist. I thought they would actually find the figure of Death, but instead found it amongst themselves.

Canterbury Tales by Eva March Tappan, link to online reading

(A Pardoner, Source: Alamy)

Reading Notes: Welsh Fairy Tales (Emerson) Part A

The Welsh (Emerson) unit was a really great read, but the language was a bit hard to understand since it is in Welsh. It's a lot different than English in that it's spelling is quite different. I chose this story because it was something that I've never heard about. After reading Part A I began to realize that this unit had many stories that revolved around fairies. I soon found out that fairies were more scary mythical creatures than I had previously known. I thought they were all like Disney fairies. I thought wrong. In the first of the stories there is a main character who is the queen of all fairies. She isn't the only character that is important in the story, but she has a big impact on the story. This story in particular showed the reader that fairies are very reasonable. They can use their magical powers for good or for revenge. The story is about the fairies who help the lives of two men and one of the men's sons. They are forever grateful and in return the son of the men aid the fairies in their quest to vanquish an evil witch. After their task is complete, the fairies grant the son a beautiful wife and they live happily ever after. If I were to retell this story I would want to keep a lot of the story the same. Except I would try to tell it from the sons perspective, this would give the story a new set of eyes and everything would be viewed differently. Even the emotions would be different. 

Welsh Fairy Tales (Emerson) by Peter Emerson, link to online reading

(Fairies, Source: Pinterest)

Week 12 Story: The Jealous Cheerleader

It was a Monday morning at Sunnydale High School. It was like any other morning except today was the first day of the new school year. You could see everyone excited to see each other after a long and hot summer. Especially Jennifer and her cheer-leading girls. Jennifer was the captain of the cheerleaders at school. She was top of her class and was liked by all the students, even teachers, at Sunnydale. Boys would go crazy over her. That all changed when Molly showed up. She was a transfer student from the north side. She was everything Jennifer, but even better. This got Jennifer very angry. She became obsessed with becoming the most popular girl of the school again. She became jealous.

Jennifer devised a plan to get rid of Molly once and for all, so that she could sit atop of the popularity scale in the end. Given Molly's rapid popularity at school, she was almost forced to join the cheer-leading squad. This wall all a part of Jennifer's devious plan. Now that she had Molly right where she wanted, all she had to do was wait till their first practice.

The day had come. Sunnydale's first cheer-leading practice took place after school. All was going well and everyone seemed to enjoy the practice so far. The girls then proceeded to the lifting portion of the practice and the girl of choice was none other than Molly herself. Jennifer was very eager to be one of the girls to lift Molly. Everything was going smoothly. All the lifters, including Jennifer, got Molly in the air, but once it was time for them to catch her everything went wrong. Jennifer was suppose to catch her, but instead "slipped" away and this leaded to Molly crashing down onto the grass. Molly was rushed to the school infirmary and was diagnosed with a broken foot from her landing. Jennifer was so excited to her about Molly's injury because that meant her plan to take her out was coming to fruition.

Little did Jennifer know that this injury caused the whole school to feel sympathy towards Molly. They teachers even took time out of their lectures and had all the students write "get well" cards for Molly. Many students even went to visit Molly in the infirmary and signed her foot cast. Jennifer's planned had totally backfired. Eventually by the end of the school year, all the students had found out that Jennifer was the one who purposefully didn't catch Molly and gave her the broken foot. Jealous Jennifer was never heard from again. Some say she transferred schools.

(Cheerleaders, Source: Forever Twenty Somethings)

Author's Note:
In the original story there was an uncle who took the every son that this family bore and killed him. He had killed 3 before a 4th child came into this world. He was kept a secret and the uncle's wife told him that they had bore a daughter and not a a son. However, the uncle found out anyways when he saw what was underneath his clothes. The uncle asked for the son and took him out to get some logs. They wandered out far into the forest where the son got caught in one of the logs. The uncle left him there to die and rot however he had tools with him that led to his escape. He gathered the log and left them in front of his uncles tent. The uncle was furious and tried to kill him many more times. Next was with ducks and eggs, then it was with clams, and then finally he made the nephew a box. He trapped the son inside this box and threw him into the ocean where he drifted from island to island until finally he halted. Two daughters found him on the shore and brought him back to their village where the chief decided to care and raise him. However, he began to miss his previous home and his parents, so with permission from the Eagle people, he flew back to the previous village. He brought them back a huge whale, but the jealous uncle took it all for himself and left none for the nephews parents. He was furious and took the uncle up into the sky and dropped him into the ocean. He couldn't swim for he drowned and died. The nephew got his revenge and took his parents back to his new found home where they all lived happily. I wanted to modernize this story and placed the setting in a high school and centered the story around two girls. One was the popular cheerleader of the school, Jennifer, and the other was a new transfer student who won every one's heart, Molly. My retelling changed a lot of things, but the main story is the same with the jealously playing a huge part.

Bibliography: "The Jealous Uncle" by Stith Thompson. Web Source

Reading Notes: Apache Tales Part B

In Part B of the reading, there were many stories that consists of a main character, the coyote. At first I thought he was the main character of each story, but I was wrong. He was only a support character. I also initially thought that these tales were connected in some way, but again I was wrong. In the first story the coyote is a trickster who plots to steal a poor man's wife. One day the poor man his household and when he returns he finds that it is an empty house. The coyote has stolen the wife and taken her back to his tipi. Eventually the poor man rescues his wife and when he returns he devises a plan to exact revenge on the evil coyote. He burns rocks till there are fiery hot and wraps in fat, so that the coyote can't resist them. This works and the coyote chows them down only to die in the end. In the next story, there is an owl who posses with him black arrows that can kill any man. The coyote in this story is greedy and wants them for himself, so he breaks the owls leg and steals the arrows. The owl is left for dead and now everyone knew the coyote was the one who possessed the arrows, so they were afraid. A pack of antelope aspire to fool the coyote an retrieve the arrows back. They get the coyote to put his quiver on one antelope and his arrows on another. This way two parts that equal a whole were divided. They told the coyote that this was a race to get his arrows back, but when they begin to run the antelope initiate their devious plan and run in different directions. The coyote is hopeless because he can't catch both. The next coupe stories involved the coyote again, but the confusing part was whether the coyote was the protagonist or antagonist. In one story is steals and another he is the victim. In my opinion, if I rewrote one of these stories I would make the coyote a adversary because coyote have a stereotypical appeal.

Apache Tales by P.E. Goddard, link to online reading

(Coyote, Source: National Geographic)

Reading Notes: Apache Tales Part A

After reading the collection of Apache Tales I was very confused. The stories themselves were clear and the plot was understandable, but the use of their language was very confusing. Mainly it was the use of pronouns that caught me off guard. If I use one of these stories to retell then my main objective will be to make the stories more understandable for the reader to follow. One of the stories about Naiyenesgani utilizes the colors blue, yellow, black, and mixed colors. These colors are a very integral part of every story that keep reappearing. The story goes that Naiyenesgani goes to hunt down a swamp monster and save the people of his tribe. The integral colors are used in his hoops that are used to drain the water and kill the monster. I can see that the colors are very important to every story, so making sure I utilize them in my own story will be very important.

Apache Tales by P.E. Goddard, link to online reading

(Apache Tales, Source: Tales of Faerie)

Week 10 Story Planning: The Jealous Uncle

After reading the story about the jealous uncle I want to retell it my own words. This story is set in the past where tribes and villages were still relevant. It also involves an uncle who takes the sons of his people and kills them. However, one son who he tried and tries to kill somehow outwits him every time. Eventually he exacts revenge on his uncle and kills him by dropping him into the ocean where he cannot swim. The son then takes his mom and dad away via means of eagle-like abilities.

In my retelling of this story I want to change a lot about the setting, characters, emotions, etc. But I will still keep the same moral and have a similar plot line. Instead of it being set in the past, I want my story to be modernized to a middle school. This way whoever reads my story can relate to it better and build a connection to the characters since most of us went to middle school. I also want to change the characters such as the jealous uncle and the son that he tries to kill. Instead, I would like a jealous and popular middle school girl and a new girl from out of town. This will eliminate the aspect of death from the original story. The story line will essentially be the same where the jealous girl will try to bully the new girl and pull stunts on her. The new girl will rebuke all attempts and in the end get her "revenge" and everyone will like her. 

Although I have everything planned out and the overall backbone of the story set, I still haven't figured out what the jealous girl will do to the new girl. In the original story the jealous uncle tries to kill the son by trapping him in a log and leaving him to die, trapping him in a clam, pushing him down a hill, and even encasing him in a wooden box and throwing him into the ocean. These are all extreme cases of trying to get rid of the son, so I will have to tone down the events and make it more petty and something a middle school girl would try and do.

(Middle School Classroom, Source: Responsive Classroom)

Bibliography: "The Jealous Uncle" by Stith Thompson. Web Source

Reading Notes: Native American Hero Tales Part B

Just like for Part A of the reading, Part B consisted of four stories. The story that stuck out to me and intrigued me the most was the one about the jealous father. This story was about a son who was born to the wife of the jealous father. He had two wives. One day he saw that the son had been on terms of intimacy with one of his wives. He then took the boy out to fish for eggs and once the son left the boat, the father turned around and deserted him on the island. He called for help and cried for hours. A walrus finally came to aid the son. He told the son to let him know if there was any lightning for he had to go underwater if there was. The boy lied which led to the walrus's death, but the son made it back to the island safely. The walrus was from the mother and the thunderstorms were from the father. On the island, an old woman from the mother came to aid the son. She gave him an animal disguise and he went into the forest. He stumbled upon two blind women who had bones sticking out their elbows. The son fooled them both into thinking he was sitting between them and had them stab each other to death. Next the boy came upon a pile of bones and a hut where dogs and people were. He dug a path underneath all the bones, but somehow managed to rustled the bones. This alarmed the dogs and the people so they went to search for him. He fooled them once again and made it back home safely. He burned down the world along with his father, but saved his mother. They both turned into birds and flew off.

Native American Hero Tales by Stith Thompson, link to online reading

 (Blue Jay, Source: Pinterest)