Reading Diary Week 7: West African Folktales

West African Folktales

How We Got the “Name Spider Tales”

The spider was able to be to clever that he was able to defeat some bees, a boa constrictor, and a tiger. It was amazing, and he used very clever ways to do it.

How Wisdom Became the Property of the Human Race

This is an interesting story about wisdom. A father got mad at people and took all of the wisdom back from them. He intended to hide all of the wisdom in a pot at the top of a tree. When he went to do so, he was trying to climb up the tree but the pot got in the way. His son who had been watching him suggested he put the pot on his back so he could climb. Angered by the fact his child had more wisdom than he did, he dropped the pot and the wisdom spread all throughout the land.

Anansi and Nothing

Two men named Anansi and Nothing went into the city to find themselves wives. Nothing was very wealthy and so he had some of the finest clothes. Anansi convinced him to trade clothes, and because of this, Anansi was able to get many wives, where Nothing only received one wife and it was by pity. However, when the went back to their houses with the women, Nothing’s wife was shocked by how beautiful a palace he had, while the other wives realized they barely even had food. The wives left Anansi and went to live with Nothing and his wife. Anansi was mad so he devised a plan that killed Nothing. Nothing’s wife was so upset she went and gave food to all the children in the town and asked them to mourn her husband’s death. That was the day that children start to “cry for Nothing.” I really liked this story.

Thunder and Anansi

This was a great story about how you get what you deserve. A father, Anansi, and his family were hungry so he went in search of food for them. He was given a pot that would magically appear with food. He decided to keep it for himself though, and hide it from his family. One day while his family noticed he was getting fatter as they starved, they found the pot. And accidently destroyed it when they tried to give food to everyone in the town. Anansi was so upset, he went back to the man who gave him the pot and told him what had happened. The man then gave him a stick, and when Anansi tried to use it to see what it would do for him, the stick beat the crap out of them. I thought that was hilarious.

Why the Lizard Moves His Head Up and Down

So Anansi is basically a terrible person. In this story he find out the names of the princesses to get their hands in marriage as was promised by the king. However, he had the help of a lizard to announce their names. Since he was technically the ones that said their names though, the king gave the wives to the lizard instead of Anansi. So Anansi set up the lizard to have appeared to have killed the town’s cock, and then Anansi made him dumb to wear he could only nod at people’s questions. The lizard was punished in the end, and the wives were given to Anansi.

Tit for Tat

The son of Anansi found a place with a lot of animals, and was getting rich off of selling them. Anansi wanted to find out where he was getting them, and since the boy wouldn’t tell, he tricked and followed him. Once he got there Anansi told him that it was his land, and that he intended to kill every animal and make a ton of money quickly. So his son tricked him, and made him think the gods were upset with him. He did this every day, and eventually his son became very rich. When he told his father what he did, Anansi was ashamed and said he would stop being foolish. But of course, he didn’t. I liked this story, but not as much as the others.

Why White Ants Always Harm Man’s Property

This was a different story since it did not involve humans. In this story, a spider has food that is taken from a leopard and tiger, then the spider tricks them and gets it back, but then some white ants help the tiger and leopard. So then the tiger and leopard intend on rewarding the white ants, but since the spider heard this, the spider had its children dress up as white ants and enjoy the feast. But then the real white ants come and the tiger and leopard think it is the spiders so they kill all of the white ants except the father. The father white ant is so upset that he determines he will never do anything but destruction again.

The Squirrel and the Spider

This story didn’t keep my attention very well. A squirrel had worked very hard to make a harvest, and the spider started to steal it, saying it was his because the squirrel didn’t make a road. Of course, the squirrel didn’t need a road since he traveled by the trees. So the courts sided with the spider. So the spider and his family took the rest of the crop and started to go to town to sell the food. But a storm came, so they dropped the food and took shelter. When they returned a crow had the food and claimed that it was his now. So no one really won in this story.

Why We See Ants Carrying Bundles as Big as Themselves

Anansi does another trick. In the end, an ant ends up carrying his burden. I honestly just feel bad for anyone that comes into contact with Anansi at this point because he is a selfish bastard.

Why Spiders are Always Found in the Corner of Ceilings

Anansi was once again caught being greedy and he was so ashamed of himself that he changed himself into a spider and went to hide in the corner of the ceiling. From that day on spiders could always be seen there. This is yet another story where Anansi is just a terrible person.

The Grinding Stone that Ground Flour by Itself

Anansi was once again greedy. His cousin had found a stone that made flour and gave him enough food for his family. Anansi took the stone and carried it, selling flour to make money. The stone though at one point wouldn’t come down from Anansi’s head and it ground him then down. Serves him right.          

Why the Moon and Stars Receive Their Light From the Sun

Ansansi and his son were captured by a dragon. The father, son, and other prisoners escaped by climbing to heaven with the intelligence and wisdom of the son. Because of this, the gods made Ansansi the moon, and his son, Kweku Tsin, the sun. It was a nice story!

How the Tortoise Got Its Shell

This was a weird story that I didn’t like. There was a man that fought for some wine and won the wine and palm trees. When he went back to the palace to give it to them, the gates were locked and a terrible storm hit. No one opened the gates until the storm was over two years later and there they found the man. They restored him to life, but he had a shell on his back and couldn’t walk upright.

The Hunter and the Tortoise

 The last line of this story sums up everything. “It is man who forces himself on things. Not things, which force themselves on him.” A man was beheaded for saying he had a turtle that would sing. People didn’t believe him, so he brought the turtle, and she wouldn’t sing. He was then killed, so then she spoke about how she didn’t want to be a show, but just sing to herself in the forest and that the man brought his fate upon himself.

The Leopard and the Ram

I didn’t quite understand the end of this story. But the leopard and ram accidently built the same house without knowing each other and decided to live together. One day the leopard thought the ram was about to try and kill him, so the leopard and his son ran away into the woods. To this day leopards still stay in the woods and rams, in the house.

King Chameleon and the Animals

The animals wanted a king, so they decided to have a race. In the race, the chameleon went and disguised himself to hide on the hare who was the fastest animal in the kingdom. When the hare went to win the race the chameleon claimed his victory. Everyone in the kingdom was mad and the new King Chameleon spent the rest of his days alone.

Elephant and Wren

In this story, spider was deceitful and ended up losing in the end. You would think by now that he would have learned his lesson.

The Ungrateful Man

This was a pretty good story. I found it interesting that for once, the person who was the traitor was punished for doing so. In the end, everyone was happy and the only person to serve consequences was the ungrateful man that the hunter saved, who had tried to betray the hunter afterwards.

Why Tigers Never Attack Men Unless They Are Provoked

I thought this was a sweet story. A tiger and a man are friends. One day when the tiger goes to visit the man, some other people try to shoot him. In order to see if the man had anything to do with it, the tiger acted dead. When the man saw him, he was deeply troubled and cried. So then the tiger realized that he was a true friend and said that he would never hurt a human unless he was provoked.

How Mushrooms First Grew

I honestly did not like, nor truly understand this story. The only thing I got from it was that there was a chain reaction of passing down the debts.

Farmer Mybrow and the Fairies

Some fairies help Mybrow make great crops. When his wife goes to get some wood and a little bit of food from the crops, the fairies decide to help and they basically ruined everything. Then Mybrow was mad at his wife and the story ended. Kind of an odd story. It wasn’t bad but I didn’t enjoy it as much.

Essay Week 6: Chinese Fairy Tales

This week I chose to read Chinese Fairytales. There were some stories that I liked, and other that I found to be very difficult to understand. I understand that it probably would take away from the story if you switched many of the characters names, however, I personally find the stories very hard to follow when they have long foreign names. I start to get the characters mixed up, then I feel lost, and I just don’t understand or appreciate the story after that.

Additionally, I felt like some of the stories skipped around. There was honestly just too much going on in some of them. That was another thing that made it hard to follow. However, not all of the stories were like this. The stories that I understood were great and I loved getting to read them. I thought they had a great use of detail, and I liked the overall themes and messages they were conveying.

The only other thing I have to criticize is that there was so many stories, that I personally think this unit was too long. I think some of the stories, like the ones with difficult names should be taken out. I like this class, but the large quantities of readings and work, it making it not be enjoyable anymore. It was okay the first few weeks of school, but now it is getting to be too much. I think I would have enjoyed this unit a little more if there hadn’t been as many stories, and the select few that were hard to follow had been taken out. Because of all of this, this unit was the least favorite I have read so far. I enjoyed many of the stories, however, some of them dragged on for too long. Overall, it was an okay unit but I am looking forward to seeing what next week has to offer. 

Image that came to mind when reading the story about the ogre. 

Photo retrieved from Wikipedia

Reading Diary Week 6: Chinese Fairy Tales

Chinese Fairy Tales

The Favorite of Fortune and the Child of Ill Luck

There once was a princess of bad luck. When the time came for her to choose her husband, several men were interested, however of all the men, she chose a beggar. She chose the beggar because she said he was a man of good luck, and thought that by choosing him, she would have good luck as well. Her husband left for 18 years in search of finding the two of them a fortune. The father of the princess was so mad at her decision to choose a beggar that he wanted nothing to do with her. During those 18 years, the princess almost starved to death several time, thank goodness her mother would sneak her food and money on occasion. Then one say a man came by, the princes recognized him as a powerful emperor. The emperor asked her about her husband and if she wished to marry someone else. She said she would be faithful to her husband until the day she died. The emperor then revealed that he was her husband and had found his fortune. They went back to his palace and celebrated every day for the rest of their lives. Of course, seeing as how the princess was of bad luck, she died 18 years later, and the emperor lived for many years after her death.

[This story may be interesting to tell as if a young woman got married and her family disowned her for it. Her husband leaves to go work in the military or oil field and returns several years later really rich or something like that. ]

The Cave of the Beasts

 There once was a family with seven daughters. One day, the father found 7 eggs and brought them home with the intention to share them with his wife. The next morning he awoke only to find that the mother had given the eggs to the children who had woken up while she was cooking them the night before. The father was so mad that he devised a plan to take his children into the mountains, leave them there and allow for the wild animals to kill them. When he asked if the children would come with him to see their grandmother, only the two youngest agreed to go. He took them and dropped them off in the mountains. When the two finally realized that he would not be coming back they took shelter in a nearby cave they saw, turns out the cave was full of jewels. But when the fox and wolf that lived there came back, they did not see them. In the morning, the girls woke up and saw the wolf and fox. They were very frightened. They decided to make a fire that would be so big it would kill the fox and wolf. When the fox and wolf woke up to a fire they begged to be let out of the cave but the girls refused, and eventually the animals died. They lived for many days in the cave. When finally one day the heard a knock on the cave. Turns out, their father was so stricken with grief after leaving them that he had come back to find them. They showed him the jewels, went back to their house and lived the rest of their days as very wealthy people.

The Panther

There was a family of two girls, a mother, and a young brother. One day the mother and little brother left to go visit their grandmother. While the mother and brother were out, a panther approached them and talked to them. They told the panther where they were going and where they were from. Eventually the panther killed and ate both of them. The panther took the mother’s clothes and headed over to their house to kill the two girls as well. While at the door, the panther was asking to be let in and the girls were very skeptical that it was their mother. They eventually let the panther in. The panther told them to go to bed. While they were in bed, they heard the panther eating something so they got up and asked to eat some as well. The panther gave them a finger, which they soon realized was their brother’s finger. They ran and climbed up a tree. They then tricked the panther into a basket so they could raise him up the tree as well. While they were raising the panther up the tree, the started banging it back and forth. The panther was so scared it jumped out of the basket and then revealed itself to the girls as the panther and not their mother. The panther ran away but the girls knew it would be back. The following day, several people stopped by and gave them things to help defeat the panther. And when the panther came back to eat the girls again, it worked and the panther was killed.

Why Dog and Cat are Enemies

A man and woman had a ring that was powerful enough to make sure they always had enough money to get by. However, the couple did not know of this power and sold the ring for a small sum. They soon began to go hungry, and since they were hungry so was their dog and cat. The dog devised a plan. The cat would catch a mouse and make the mouse chew a hole into the chest of where the ring was being kept by its new owner. So the dog helped the cat across a river to go get the ring. The mouse did as it was told for it feared its life. Then the dog helped the cat back over the river again on their way home. After the reached the other side of the river they were on their home stretch. The cat was able to crawl over the buildings and so it got home much sooner than the dog who had to run around the buildings. The cat presented the ring to the owners and never gave the dog any credit. The cat was then treated like the owners own child. And when the dog came home, he was beaten for not helping the cat and locked outside. The dog was very upset with the cat, and chased and growled at it for every day after that.

Yang Oerlang

I read this story twice, and still didn’t really understand this. A ruler of the heavens, a mother, and Oerlang are involved though. Oerlung was destroying suns or something, when they said he had to leave one sun to keep things alive. He was then made into a god, and was to rule of the earth.

The Lady of the Moon

This story is very similar to the one before it. I am not a fan of the names that are hard to distinguish and also when there are too many things going on at once. It makes the story very difficult to understand. I did not like this story. There was a lady of the moon, some emperors, and sorcerers. There was music? I honestly just don’t understand the point or moral of this story. It is much harder to understand than the first few stories were.

The Girl with the Horse’s Head or the Silkworm Goddess

This story was kind of disturbing. A girl’s father went on a journey and so she was left to take care of their horse. Eventually she was so lonely that she told the horse that if he would go off, find her father, and bring him back that she would marry the horse. So the horse immediately left, found the father, and brought him back to the daughter. When the daughter told the father what she had promised the horse, the father shot and killed the horse. He then hung the skin of the horse out on their land. The father then left and went back on his journey. Then one day the girls and a neighbor were walking together, the daughter shoved the horse skin and said how it was a stupid animal to believe it would marry a human. Immediately the horse skin wrapped around the girl and took her away. The neighbor was stunned. They went searching for the girl and found her hung from a tree in the horse’s skin and was starting to cocoon. They then made the cocoon into silk. She then became the goddess of silk and protecting the silkworms. The people then worshipped and built temples for her. It was a weird story.

The God of War

God of War is Guan Di, real name was technically Guan Yu. Guan Di and several of his friends made a pact to be friends forever. One day he was ambushed by an enemy land and taken prisoner with his son. Guan Di refused to join his enemy, so him and his son were killed. As a result, several other people died. He appeared to a monk after his death as a god.

The Miserly Farmer

Basically a priest pulls a fast one on a farmer. The priest asks the farmer for one of the pears the farmer is selling for free. The farmer says no. So an artisan went and bought a pear for the farmer. The priest then said that he would take the seed from the pear and be able to give pears to everyone. While everyone was watching him plant the seed, and water it, the priest pulled a fast one on the farmer and took his entire cart of pears and distributed them to the crowd. The farmer did not see him do this since he was watching the seed and plant grow. When the farmer went back and saw his pears and cart were gone, everyone laughed at how foolish he was.

The King of the Ants

So this was a very confusing story. There was a scholar that moved into a supposedly haunted house. What he didn’t know was that they were haunted by ants. The ants would battle and feast, and dance. One day their King made fun of the scholar for studying and said he needed to join them. So the scholar started to attack them with his books, they scurried away. So the scholar dug up the hole where they went, found a huge ant nest, and smoked and killed them all. That was my best understanding of the story at least. 

The Little Hunting Dog

This was an odd story. It seemed to be kind of similar to the King of the Ants story. From what I could gauge, a scholar moves into a house and is bothered by little people/vermin the size of grasshoppers. He gets a dog that helps devour these vermin. I think the dog was small as well. And then I think what the end of the story inferred is that he accidently rolled over one day and killed the dog and vermin. That’s what I understood but like I said it was confusing.

Fox-Fire

There was a farmer out one night and he saw a fox that had a ball of fire elixir that came from his throat. One night, the farmer stole it and with this he was able to help people, be in contact with the spirit world, and do pretty much everything. It made him very wealthy. Thirty years went by and the fox came back to the farmer one night and stole it back from him.

The Talking Silver Foxes

There was so much that happened in this story that it is hard to understand. I felt like a lot of it was just thrown together. It talked about a special temple and how outside of this temple were some talking foxes. A farmer tried to whip one of them, which scared it. There was a possessed woman. And then at the end there was an archer that attacked, and killed a talking fox. So now they don’t show themselves anymore.

Retribution

Basically a young boy, Ma, witnessed a water carrier slip, fall, and die. His father was with the young man and so he dragged him out to the riverbank and acted like he had no idea what happened. Years went by, and when Ma was much older he saw the water carrier again. Apparently he had been reborn. The story ends with someone else being killed and the child not saying a word about it again.

The Night on the Battlefield

So a merchant stayed the night at a battlefield. He basically saw the ghosts of an old general who was able to dissemble his entire body. When he woke up he was out in a field instead of the inn he was supposed to be staying at. The innkeeper told him that since it was an old battleground that weird stuff like that happened all the time. Not a bad story, but it was drawn out quite a bit.

The Maiden Who Was Stolen Away

One day a tornado came along and swept up a maiden, it took her to the top of a very tall building. When she was there, a young man was there as well and told her it must be fate that they were brought there and asked her to marry him. She refused him. He got upset and locked her in the top of the building. He came every day with food, water, and presents to try and get her hand in marriage but she refused. He made it impossible for her to escape. One day, after he left and she looked out the window, she noticed that the man turned into an ogre after he left. She was terrified. Soon after she saw a young man walking around, and so to get his attention she dropped her old clothes down to him. He saw them, looked up to the tower and saw the figure of what he thought was a woman. The clothes he thought looked familiar so he took them to the parents of the girl who went missing from the tornado. The parents confirmed they were hers. So the parents had her brother go fetch her. He took an axe and cut the arm of the ogre, and then went and rescued his sister.

The Flying Ogre

A monk was walking through the woods when he came across a girl in a red coat. She asked him to please not tell anyone that he had seen here for people were looking for her. A man later came up on a horse and asked the monk about the girl. He denied saying he saw her until the man told the monk that it was actually a flying ogre and it needed to be killed. The man also said that he had been send from heaven to kill the ogre. So the monk pointed to a large tree the ogre went into, and the man went and killed the ogre.

The Sorcerer of the White Lotus Lounge

A Sorcerer was very powerful and had several pupils that were learning from him the way of dark magic. The pupils kept letting him down, and one even insulted him. So the sorcerer turned the child pupil into a pig and sold him to a butcher. The child’s father came looking for him, and when he found out what happened to his son he was outraged and went to the king. An army came to arrest the sorcerer. They put the sorcerer, his wife, and his son, in cages and started off toward the king. On the way they met a giant. The sorcerer said that his wife could stop the giant, so they let her out, and the giant swallowed her up. Next the sorcerer said surely his son could stop the giant, but when they let the son out, the giant swallowed him up. At last, the sorcerer was let out to stop the giant. They fought for a while, until finally the giant swallowed him, and started to walk away. The soldiers then realized that they had been tricked by the sorcerer.

The Three Evils

There were three evils, a dragon, a tiger, and a man named Dschou  Tschu. When Dschou found out that he was one of the evils, he went and killed the tiger, then the dragon, and then went and enlisted in the army to serve his country and get away from putting them in pain. They loved him for this and saw him as a hero. He died by the sword in battle.

How the River God’s Wedding Was Broken Off

There was a terrible custom that sounded like what they did was they would take a young girl, give her presents, marry her, and then sacrifice her to the river gods. This happened every year, and one year they were determined to end this terrible curse. They picked one girl, and in the end they drowned a witch and a sorcerer, and everyone else was so scared that they ended the wedding tradition forever and sent the girl home to be with her family and live happily ever after.

Yang Gui Fui

They killed Yang’s cousin and then determined that they must kill her as well. The emperor was sad about this and tried to protect her but she was hung from a pear tree. A magician went looking for her for the emperor in the after life but the magician could not find her. He found her on a thrown and told her that she would be reunited with the emperor in 12 years. She was a great spirit and the emperor was happy to know they would be reunited again.