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).