Kat's Myth-Folklore 2018 Blog

The legend of tiny frog. There was an ancient of tiny frogs.  His grandmother locked him away and then took him out to meet the other ancients of other animals.  Each one they would come upon, the tiny frog would wrestle and beat, causing some distinct characteristic we recognize today in animals such as panthers, bears, buffalo, and deer.  But after beating the deer, the frog decided to stay with the deer and told him that he would cry out if he saw a hunter coming for the deer & the deer should run away as fast as it can.  That is why some say that every time you hear a frog cry out, someone is after a deer. Bibliography:  The Tiny Frog by Biloxi.  Weblink . Frog

The Origin of Tobacco One day a boy was climbing a mountain and smelled the smell of tobacco.  He went into the cave he knew was the home of a giant guarding tobacco.  He asked the giant for tobacco but the giant said to come back in another year because a group that only came once a year had just left from their yearly smoke.  The boy didn't like this answer so he grabbed a bag of tobacco and ran.  The boy jumped from peak to peak of the mountains with the giant behind him.  The boy laid down flat on one peak & the giant sailed over him, falling into a chasm.  The giant tried to climb out, but the boy turned him into a grasshopper so he could be the pest of those who tried to grow tobacco in the future.  The boy shared the tobacco and seeds among all his brothers, so the Indians were never without tobacco again. I think I may change this story into a version of Mickey and the Beanstalk.  Having to steal something from a giant reminds me o...

( Mint plant ) Once upon a time, there was only one mint plant in the entire country.  Everyone had to get their mint from the same plant and we all know how important mint is in life.  Mint is useful for making food and drink taste better, for energy, and for all sorts of ailments, but most especially it is useful for stomach ailments. Outside a little village in a run down chateau, lived a young maiden named Cinderella.  She was very kind and beautiful and was loved by all animals and most people.  She was supposed to inherit her family chateau and all the family wealth and possessions, but she had a cold cruel step-mother who killed her beloved father.  Once she killed off poor Cinderella's father, she squandered the family fortune, trying to get her own ugly daughters married off into wealth and royalty.  But the daughters were so ugly, inside and out, that no one wanted them.   The cruel step-mother made a slave of Cinderella....

(Hummingbird ) There was a hummingbird and a crane, both in love with a woman.  They both wanted her badly.  The woman liked the hummingbird better because he was handsome, where the crane was clumsy.  They continued arguing over the woman for months.  Finally to settle the argument and have some peace, the woman challenged the pair of birds to a race around the world.  Whomever won the race is who she would marry.  The woman thought there was no way the hummingbird would lose because it was so fast.  The hummingbird thought this as well.  They didn't know however, that the Crane could fly all night without rest. So the race was on.  The hummingbird took off, way in front of the crane.  Finally tired, the humming bird stopped to eat, drink, & sleep for the night.  The crane kept right on flying, passing the hummingbird.  The next morning, the hummingbird was off again & eventually came upon the crane, who had...

Tobacco and Strawberries: When the world was new, there was only one tobacco plant and everyone had to go to it to get their tobacco.  It was later stolen.  An old woman was growing so frail that she would die without tobacco so all the animals wanted to try to get the tobacco back for her.  Every animal that tried failed and was killed by the geese that had stolen the plant.  Finally a tiny hummingbird said that he would try.  All the other animals tried to talk the humming bird out of this because he was so very tiny that they just knew he would fail.  But he showed them how fast he was & they agreed to help.  He zipped up to the plant, snatched some leaves from the top, and hurried back to the old woman before he was seen.  The old woman had become so lifeless they thought she was dead.  But the hummingbird blew some smoke at her & she opened her eyes & was alive again. I'm going to change this to a Cinderella version becau...

( Beauty and the Beast ) Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess in a small village.  One day there was a great magical storm that swept across the land, taking the princess with it and depositing her up in a tower of an old abandoned castle.  The princess was scared because she couldn't find a way out of the tower.  A mysterious handsome young man appeared in her tower bringing her food, drink, and beautiful new clothes.  He told her he would help her escape the tower, if only she would agree to marry him because it was obviously fate that had brought them together.  She was so sad and missed her family so much, but something just didn't seem right so she refused and said she'd rather live in the tower. Every day the handsome stranger would visit the princess in her tower, bringing her gifts of more clothes, jewelry, food, everything she could imagine.  Every day he said he would help her escape the tower if only she would marry him....

( Liaodi Pagoda ) Once upon a time, a magical storm blew threw a land and swept up in it a beautiful maiden.  The storm sat the maiden down in the top of a ruined pagoda.  It was a very long way down & she couldn't make it on her own.  She turned around and there was a nice looking young man, dressed as a student.  He told her "It seems like heaven meant for us to be together.  Marry me & I'll get you down from here."  Something didn't seem right about this, so the maiden wouldn't agree.  The young man left, but left her food & drink. This continued on for many days.  The young man would come back & ask the maiden to marry him and every day she refused.  He always left her food & drink, but also new clothes, jewelry, a light to keep her company at night.  The young man closed up all the windows so she couldn't escape & he destroyed some of the upper staircase so she couldn't get down by the stairs....

( Dog and Cat from BBC ) There was a man & wife with a lucky ring of gold.  They didn't know the ring was magic.  But whomever had the ring, would never go hungry.  One day the couple decided they needed the money, so they sold the ring.  After that, they got poorer & hungrier.  The couple had a dog & cat.  When the couple started going hungry, of course the dog & cat had to go hungry as well.  The dog came up with a plan to get the ring back.  The dog told the cat to catch a mouse & that mouse must chew a hole in the chest where the ring was, steal the ring, and bring it back to them.  If the mouse wouldn't do it, the cat was to threaten the mouse.  They had to cross a river, and the cat & mouse couldn't swim, but they rode on the back of the dog as he swam across the river.  The mouse went in stole the ring, came back to the cat, they swam back across the river on the back of the dog.  The dog h...

Best writing for this week:  I'm really enjoying my Storybook project.  I was a little nervous about how I was actually going to accomplish what I wanted to and tie everything together, but once I sat down to write, it actually flowed really well.  Combining Harry Potter along with mythological horses/horse-hybrids is pretty fun.  You don't get to see a lot of those sorts of creatures really in the books or movies, outside of the Thestrals and Centaurs, but there are several in mythology to choose from and because Rowling mixes in all sorts of stories in the Potter series, it's a great way to weave your stories!  My best writing this semester is always my Storybook, in my opinion.  I've even discovered that if I want my weekly stories to be anything I can relate to or be proud of, I have to do them like my Storybook and use Harry Potter themes to make them work for me.  Anything I write without that theme just doesn't come out as creative for me. I'v...

Looking back:  I'm happy so far with my progress.  I stay fairly caught up.  I sometimes wind up skipping Reading B, but doing extra credit to make up for it.  I'm staying on track for an A in the course right now.  For extra credit, I usually just wind up doing extra blog comments, but I may change that this half of the semester because I'm running out of posts I haven't commented on. Looking forward:  I'm pretty happy so far with the course.  I may try a couple different extra credit options just to change things up.  I may also change up my note-taking and feedback processes.  I like how my blog & storybook are going.  The next couple stories in my storybook may be more difficult to figure out how to fit them in my theme, but I'm looking forward to the challenge. ( From Growth Mindset Cats )

I'm receiving good feedback overall.  It does get frustrating, because you will often get contradicting feedback on stories.  But honestly, when I go to buy or download a book on Amazon, there are contradicting reviews on the books I read as well, so I guess it's to be expected.  After all, you can't please everyone and people find different writing styles better or worse for their own personal tastes.  I really don't like contradicting feedback on my Storybook stuff because I enjoy that project and want to do a good job with it, but I'm learning to live with it and just use the ones I want to use to make changes. Leaving feedback.  This one is tough because I hate being rude.  One story I read was just plain bad, everything about it was contradicting itself, but I tried to leave useful feedback without being rude.  Some stories I read and they are either just too short to have enough to leave feedback on or I just don't connect with them.  I ha...

Since week 8 is a review week in this class, here are thoughts about the semester so far in this course: Overall, I'm happy with how my blog & my website are working.  Google sites is a little different from anything I've used before as a website, but I'm getting the hang of working within it's limitations.  For Blogger, my blog is good.  I'm used to more customization in Wordpress, but this is good and I actually enjoy blogging.  If I wasn't swamped with course work, I'd like to maybe take up writing a personal blog again.  It's really fun and while I dread having to sit down and come up with a post every time, once I get going I rather enjoy it and the writing flows pretty good.  I was really dreading my first story in my Storybook, but it came out much better than I thought it would.  Once I sucked it up and got to work, the words started flowing really well & my mind did a good job of wandering through the story.  I'll be intereste...

Once upon a time in the old countryside lived a wise old ruler.  In this country, was also two very poor men, taking care of their old mothers.  One day, one of the men was walking along the road to the village with his jug of oil, selling it along the way, for money to buy food for his mother & himself.  He found himself very tired because the road was long & the jug was heavy, so he decided to set on a fence along the road to rest and sat his jug on the fence as well.  Shortly after, along came the other man with bundles of straw strapped to his cow, taking them into the village to sell.  The second man didn't see that his cow with her straw had drifted too close to the fence trying to snatch a mouthful of grass and so the first man's jug of oil was knocked off, smashing onto the road & draining all the oil out. The first man cried out, "How could you be so stupid as to let you knock over my jug?!  That was my only way to make money to feed ...

The Tale of the Donkey and the Rock: A wise ruler presided over a land.  In this land lived 2 very poor men with old mothers to support.  One of the men traveled down the road, with a jug of oil, selling it as he went for money for food for himself & his mother.  He grew tired & sat his jar down on a rock.  The other old man came along, with bundles of wood tied to his donkey.  The man & donkey didn't see the jar & accidentally knocked over the jar, breaking it & spilling all the oil.  The first man was very upset, as that was his only way to make money.  They quarreled & were brought before the ruler to be judged.  The ruler decided that it wasn't the 2 men at fault, it was the fault of the rock & the donkey so he had them both arrested.  The whole town showed up out of curiosity to see a rock & donkey on trial.  The ruler had the gates locked.  He told the whole town they were silly to come see...