Mythology and Folklore Blog

The Insect King: The Beetle  The ants have tried everything they could to try to escape the anteater. No matter what they did, it seemed to fail. The anteater has been ruining the ants shelter and destroying colonies for as long as the ants can remember. Their many days of hard work and labor would come to an end as soon as the anteater arrived. The ants who live in the trees originally lived on the ground with the other ants, but they thought they would be safer on a higher shelter. Even though they escaped the anteater, they had another enemy, the birds.  The Queen Ant decided to call a meeting in the undergrounds of their ant hill. "I plan on talking to the Insect King at dawn. I will propose an agreement between us and our enemies, so they can leave us alone." The ants cheered and cried, as they were so hopefully that they would no longer fear their enemies everyday.  The Insect King was a beetle, who was known to cause peace between the insect world. The Queen Ant wa...

The rabbit and the tortoise: Link   There are many different stories about a tortoise and a rabbit, probably because they differ so much in speed. In "The Dance for Water"  the rabbit is a stubborn animal who will not help the other animals in their methods for getting water. The animals decide that they bring the water from the ground by dancing. The rabbit thinks that this is not a good idea, and laughs at the animals. The other animals are able to dance the water out, and the rabbit decides to drink the water even though it didn't help. The animals plan to capture the rabbit, and it is quite ironic how the tortoise is the one who volunteers to catch the rabbit. A tortoise is much slower than a rabbit, but by disguising himself as a stone and putting pitch on his back, he is able to capture the rabbit.  Story source: South African Folk-Tales by James Honey (1910).

Sketch of an ant: Source This story talks about the many enemies of the ant. The ant is small but destructive, and they plan to find a way to get rid of their enemies once and for all. The ants divide in groups:the red, rice, black, wagtail, grey, shining, and many others. No matter where they tried to find shelter, the ant eater or the birds were able to come and eat them. I thought this story would end by describing how the ants were able to get rid of their enemies, but unfortunately they were not able to. I think that if I were to write a story about these ants I would write about an alternate ending where they are able to find adequate shelter and hid from their enemies. Story source: South African Folk-Tales by James Honey (1910).

A quote by Morgan Harper Nichols: One of my favorite artists and writers!  Source I am happy with my progress in the class so far. The extra credit assignments have been really helpful on boosting my grade when I did not finish an assignment! I am thankful that we have the grace period because that is usually when I finish my assignments since I work at a front desk in the morning! The class assignments that I enjoy most are writing a story after readings A and B. The changes I would like to make for the second half of the semester would be to finish assignments earlier. I was really busy in the beginning of the semester with grad school applications and taking the GRE, but after I am finished with that I have a lot more time! I would also like to change the format of my website and make it more colorful.  

What Great Listeners Actually Do: Source I would rate the quality of the comments to be 10/10! Everyone has been so nice when commenting on my posts and the feedback has been very helpful. The most useful comments are the ones that give me advice on how I can make my stories better. The WWW and TAG feedback strategies have been really helpful by guiding me to leave a comment and feedback. By reading other people's stories, I have been inspired by their layout of way of telling a story for my storybook. I have felt connected to other people in the class by reading their introductions! I am very interested in learning about who they are, so it has been great reading about them and leaving a comment. The comments on my introduction have made me smile and I think it is great that we are required to read mostly everyone's introduction and leave comments.    I chose the graphic "What Great Listeners Actually Do" because it emphasizes the importance of listening to others ge...

A photo from my favorite unit (Bidpai): Source I have really enjoyed the reading and writing assignments. I have always liked to write stories, and this class gives me a lot of options on what I could write about! I am really happy with my blog. I love the layout and the pictures I included for each of my stories and posts. My project website isn't exactly how I want it right now. I want to add more photos and colors to the website because it looks a little plain for me. I also want to add a short summary of each of my stories to the home page. I saw one of the past blogs from another class which had that format, and I thought it looked really good. My reading notes have been helping me and I feel like they are able to help the reader as well. I do not have a favorite reading so far, I have honestly enjoyed all the different types of readings! The Bidpai unit was very interesting to me and my favorite story I have written would have to be the The Nightingale and the Rose (originall...

“ The Monkey King Sun Wukong ” by Kubo Shunman 1757-1820. The Monkey King from Sun Wu Kung's POV I have always known I was different than the other apes. I was the only one who was born from an egg, while everyone else had a mother. It did not bother me that much because all of us were a family, but I still would wonder why I was so different. We all grew up together on the Island called the Mountain of Flowers and Fruits. We had everything we needed, from food to places to explore, but somehow I craved more.  One hot summer afternoon, me and the other apes wanted to find a nice, cool place to bathe. We wandered far off to the East of the island to see what we could find. Miraculously, we saw a waterfall that plunged down a very high cliff. Amazed, we all swam as close as we could to see it. "Whoever can go through this waterfall without injury can be our King!" one of the apes screamed. Some of the apes tried to go through the waterfall, but failed. As I watched the othe...

Sun Wu Kung, Monkey King: Source In the beginning of this story, Sun Wu Kung is proving his power to Buddha as he wants to become the King of the Heavens. He thinks he is ready to become the king but the Buddha is telling him that it takes a lot of perfecting of virtues. The Buddha told him if he was able to leave his hand, he would tell the King of the Heavens to make him King. Sun Wu Kung got too confident and was not able to leave his hand. Buddha sent him to lie on the mountain for hundreds of years so he could help the Monk fetch holy writings. A ring was giving to the ape which he could not take off, which made him obedient to his new master.  Bibliography: Story source: " The Ape Sun Wu Kung " in The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921)

The waterfall the ape went through. Source Handsome King of the Apes  In this story, there is a magical rock on the top of a mountain. Within this rock, it has all the seed power of heaven, earth, the moon, and the sun. One day, this magical rock burst and out came an egg! Out of this egg hatched an ape. One day the other apes said that whoever could go through the waterfall without injury would be the King of the Apes. The magical Ape had the power to go through the waterfall and informed the others of what was on the other side. They then made him the king.   Bibliography: "The Ape Sun Wu Kung" in The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).

These are some of the resources/ photos I found for my storybook.  - I found this website that has information about any saint you want. It is useful because it has brief information about each saint.  - I found this photo of Sant Therese that I have never seen before! The website I found it on also has information on St. Therese, but at the end it includes a reflection from the author with life lessons St. Therese has taught. 

The King making the thief a general: Source The stories I have read are based on a Goblin sitting on the king's shoulder and telling him a story.At the end of each story, he asks the King a question. I the story of The Girl and the Thief, a young woman is disgusted with the thought of marriage. Her father does not say anything about this, but he is slightly upset about it.  A thief is roaming the city where the girl lives, and the king went out to capture this thief. Once he does, he leads him to his fate of dying. The girl sees this thief and falls in love with him. She tells her father to convince the king to let him go, but the king declines. Before the thief dies, he sees the girl and smiles with a tear rolling down his face. The girl takes his lifeless body to the god, Shiva. Shiva brings the thief back to life, and the king appoints him to general after learning of his courage.  The question the goblin asks the king is "O king, when the thief on the stake saw the merchan...