Thursday, February 12, 2015

Extra reading Week 5: Khasi fairytales

While I did read more than just one story, this blog post is mainly about the fairytale, "The Tiger and the Monkeys" because it was so similar to one of my favorite stories from the Norse myths.

The Tiger and the Monkeys:

So as people may know, I’m really into Norse mythology. As I was reading this tale, I kept referring back to a similar Norse tale with Thor and Loki fooling the giants.

The tale begins with Tiger, king of all the animals, taking a leisurely stroll through the jungle. He hears this beautiful music, and can’t find the source of it because it’s coming from a tiny insect. Because he’s an insolent and ignorant king, he doesn’t realize it’s coming from Shalymmen, the tiny insect. Instead, he asks the monkeys above where the music is coming from and, because one of the younger monkeys is a clown, he says it’s his sisters’ singing.

Tiger’s like, “Alright then, you’re now my brother-in-law because I’m going to marry your sister.”

I’ve never understood this type of logic in fairytales. “Oh, I’m enraptured by your beauty, I shall marry you! Your voice is beautiful, I shall marry you!” You’re going to spend the rest of your life with someone you barely know based on one character quality? Come on. I guess that’s why they call them fairy tales.

Long story short, the monkeys trick tiger by decorating a clay image of a monkey in wedding finery, making sure the head is loose. Tiger comes along, puts a string of Betel-nuts around her neck (I guess Betel-nuts are part of some sort of wedding ritual among the Khasi people), pulls too hard on the necklace and takes the head clean off.

Truly, who could resist a bride so beautiful?

Image: Susan Bowswer's Pinterest

The monkeys gang up on Tiger and a bloody battle ensues. And that’s why, to this day, Tiger fears only the monkeys in the jungle.

This is very similar to the story, “How Thor Lost His Hammer” in Norse mythology. Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, is stolen by the Jotuns (giants), and when he and Loki go to bargain with the Jotuns to get it back they’re like, “Yeah, you can have it, as long as our king can marry Freyja.”

Freyja, of course, is like, “No.”

So all the gods and goddesses of Asgard come up with a plan to steal back the hammer.

Thor gets decked out in wedding garb, impersonating Freyja, and Loki acts as one of his handmaidens.

The beard is so inconspicuous.

Image: Wikipedia

They go to the hall of the Jotun king and a great wedding feast is held. Thor’s face is kept veiled the entire time so the Jotun king doesn’t see ‘Freyja’s’ beautiful face. So when the time comes for the ceremony and the ‘I do’s,’ the hammer is brought to the bride and Thor snatches it, revealing himself and laying waste to the Jotun king’s great hall.

While the story varies, the plot is almost the same. In both cases the family of the bride-to-be tricks the groom and has their revenge.

Monday, February 9, 2015

Week 5 Reading A: Life of the Buddha (Little Prince Siddhartha)

This week for my reading I chose to read about ‘The Life of Buddha’. I took the Indian Epics class a year ago and had my fill of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, so I decided to stray away from traditional fairytales and read about the famed Siddhartha. I’ve also always been curious about buddhism in general, so I figured these stories would be good to read.

Maya’s Dream:

So Queen Maya and King Suddhodhana are the parents of Siddhartha. Before his birth, Queen Maya is visited in a dream by many Gods and Goddesses, singing and praising, and having a grand ‘ol time.

She awakes feeling freed from all earthly troubles and worries, completely blissful. She tells her husband about the dream in private in the wood outside their palace. He calls upon the brahmans (wise men) to interpret the dream and they proclaim that the King and Queen will birth a son who will grow in nobility and then go to see the suffering of the world and strive to put an end to it. The King and Queen rejoice and there is much celebration - the poor are given food, the thirsty are given drink, and all the women receive nice perfumes and flowers. Reading this, I imagined it in my mind like a grand Bollywood movie. Flower petals falling from the air, smiling faces everywhere, the sitar playing gaily in the distance… The way the celebration is described in the story, it’s no wonder Bollywood films are so colorful.

This is how I imagine Siddhartha's birth was celebrated.

Image: The Merchants of Bollywood

The Birth of Siddhartha:

Most of these stories are reading like a grand Bollywood dream. Queen Maya somehow knows her son is about to be born and wants him to be born surrounded by flowers in bloom. So the King sends his servants out to drape silver and gold ornaments on the trees outside, his wife dresses in fine silks (a poor choice for a woman about to give birth, if you ask me), and everyone in attendance is decked in their best. So she goes out, wanders about the trees, stops to sniff a blossom, and poof - baby Siddhartha is born. No pain, no fuss. Birds sing, the sick are cured, the world is rid of all its sorrows. Just by this little prince-baby being born. Incredible. Cue more colorful Bollywood dancing.

Asita’s Prediction:

Asita, a wise and learned man in the ways of the spirit, comes to visit the baby-prince Siddhartha. He tells the King that his son will indeed seek to end suffering in the world, and he is sad because he will not be alive to hear the teachings of the Buddha. Honestly, to be burdened with such knowledge, to know that you’ve missed your chance to learn from one of the best teachers of all time… that would sadden me quite a bit, too.

Siddhartha’s First Meditation:

Little prince Siddhartha is told to go learn from Viswamithra, the wisest sage (gurus) in the land. I’ve read about Viswamithra before in the Ramayana - he’s a very popular choice for teaching young princes. There seem to have been so many wonderful teachers in Hindu mythology. I think I would have liked to study under them.

Seeing Siddhartha’s brillaince, Viswamithra is stunned and decides there is nothing he can teach him. So little prince Siddhartha goes to sit in a field under a clump of trees and meditate. He emits some sort of glow when doing this - I’m not sure why (or how for that matter). Many people stop to stare in awe at him and praise him. I’m also not sure why this is happening, either. I also notice it doesn’t mention which tree he meditates under. I’m pretty sure it’s important to know what kind of tree the Buddha meditates under in case I want to replicate the same results.

An ivory carving depicting Siddhartha meditating

Image: Wikipedia

Bilbiography: 'Life of Buddha,' by Andre Ferdinand Herold (1922).

Read the stories here!

Friday, February 6, 2015

Week 4 Extra Reading: Sindbad the Sailor!

The Voyages of Sindbad

The voyages of Sindbad are told from a first-person narrative. Reading these, I tried to calculate the probability of the tall-tale actually taking place.

Voyage 1:

In this voyage, Sindbad and his men set up camp on an island out in the middle of the ocean for the night. But when they try starting a fire, the island reveals itself to actually be the back of a ginormous whale! Many of the men try to escape, but many more die. Sindbad is left behind by his crew and clings to a single plank of wood as life support until he drifts up to an (actual) island and happens upon some of the King’s men grazing his horses. The men take him to the king, he is reunited with his crew who has come to trade with the king, and everybody has a happy ending.

Now I’m not sure an entire crew would be able to make camp on the back of a whale, but I wonder if the resting back of a whale could be enough room for at least a few people. The awakening would still be rude, of course, but maybe it would be fun to camp on a whale for a night.

Voyage 2:

This voyage is definitely a bit harder to believe because Sindbad ends up stranded on an island with giant eagle birds. Because he’s crafty, he sneaks up to one and uses his turban to tie himself to the leg of the bird. Then, he’s carried across the island and unties himself in a valley of diamonds! Unfortunately, the diamonds appear to be in a land of giant snakes.

I’m all for believing giant animals still exist, but diamonds? Out in the open on the ground? No way. I don’t know much about crystal chemistry, but I’m pretty sure diamonds are harvested from veins of coal that have seen too much pressure and heat. They don’t just pop up out of the ground like that.

Sindbad plans his escape from the roc nest

Image: Virginia Frances Sterrett

Voyage 3:

This tale sounds a lot like the one I read in ‘The Odyssey’, when Odysseus and his men land on the island of Cyclops. In this tale, Sindbad and his crew land upon an uncharted island where these hairy dwarves hijack their ship and strand them on another island. Sindbad and his crew wander the island and find a castle that they venture into. They soon discover it’s littered with human bones, and then I giant comes in and eats the captain. I don’t know what it is, but something humanoid cannibalizing another human just gives me the major creeps.

They escape the same way Odysseus and his men did - stabbing the giant in the eye with a red hot poker. Then they escape on driftwood rafts with the other giants trying to avenge their giant brother and throwing large boulders at the escaping sailors. I suppose this in itself is another great example of storytelling!

The giant from the third voyage decides which sailor he will eat that night.

Image: visiteveryday

Bibliography
Book: Arabian Nights' Entertainments
Author: Andrew Lang
Year: 1898
Read the stories here!

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Storytelling Week 4: What's the password?

The leader of the most successful mafia in town, Ron had almost everything he wanted. Power, money, women… and if he didn’t have it, there was almost always some way to get it. He ran a network of crime throughout the city, just under the grid of law enforcement (at least the ones he couldn’t pay off in the first place). His members were all loyal to him and specialized in the best of mafia-related skills - weapons, computer hacking, internet security breaching, counterfeit money, etc. The citizens might not realize it, but Ron was king of the city.

But little did he know, one of his subjects was not as loyal as he would like to have believed. Her name was Islene, a dusky arabian beauty specializing in espionage. She had gotten into the business with a lust for gold and no glory and had risen in the ranks to be in Ron’s inner circle. She was in direct contact with him and was one of his most trusted partners in crime.

Ron divided the mafia’s earnings fairly, but kept the bulk of their gains locked away in a vault with a passcode that only he knew the key to. He didn’t trust anyone else with the passcode and kept it’s openings and closings tightly guarded.

Islene was as beautiful as she was crafty. Her loyalty was only to herself and she craved the money and power that lay within the vault. She vowed to get it by any means necessary - even if it meant putting other lives in danger.

She came up with a devious plan and put it into action on a day when she knew nobody else was going to be around the vault save for the guards. It was cunning and diabolical and she grinned at her own evil genius.

The original mob boss, Joe Mantegna

Image: Wikipedia

One day while Ron was out of the country in Italy visiting family, she called him saying it was something urgent. Annoyed, he went out onto the terrace and opened his phone.

“I told you to only call me in emergencies,” he hissed into the phone, irritated.

“This IS an emergency!” Islene yelled, panic rising in her voice. “I’ll explain quickly - I came in to check on everything and I heard a commotion coming from the vault room. I went in and the guards were dead and two men were in there with a bomb. I managed to take both of them out but the bomb is still going and I don’t know how to disable it!”

Ron processed this a moment, taking a deep breath. He exhaled slowly, rage and fear rushing through his body.

“How much time is left on the bomb?” Ron asked, keeping his voice steady.

“I-I don’t know… I think only a few minutes, maybe five at best.” Islene said quickly.

Ron swore and slammed his fist down on the balcony ridge. “Dammit, Islene, is nobody else there?”

“No, I checked, and there’s not enough time to call anyone. Ron, you know I would never ask this of you unless the situation was dire. I need your passcode so I can take as much as I can out of the safe.”

Automatically, “No. Absolutely not.”

“Please, Ron. I would never ask this of you, I swear it!” Islene pleaded desperately.

Ron swore again and, gritting his teeth, knew he had no other choice. “Fine. I’ll give you my passcode. Take as much as you can, but for God’s sake, get out of there alive.”

He told her the passcode and she hung up without even saying goodbye.

Ron called Islene a few minutes later and received no answer. Minutes turned to hours, hours to days, and days to weeks. Islene had tricked him. There had been no bomb, robbers, or dead guards (though she had incapacitated them when she went to go collect the vault money). She had taken away his power by fooling him with her cunning scheme.

Author's Note: This was a story from Egyptian mythology. In the original story, Ra's true name is known to only himself and it is the source of great power. Isis, desiring to know his name and thus the source of such power, tricks him and poisons him. Since she's the best healer out of all the deities, she tends to Ra and tells him the only way she can save him is if he tells her his true name. Ra resists at first, reluctant to have anyone else have access to such power. However, having no other choice but death, Ra tells her his true name and she restores him back to full health. Isis doesn't abuse the power of having his name like Islene does with the passcode, but I figure the retelling would be a little bit more realistic. Perhaps I could have drawn out the story a bit more and had Islene wait until a later date to take the money and run, but I felt the story made more sense this way.

Bibliography:

Title: The Secret Name of Ra

Book: Egyptian Myth and Legend

Author: Donald Mackenzie

Year: 1907

Read the story here!

Monday, February 2, 2015

Week 4 Reading B: Moar Ancient Egypt!

Instead of taking notes on the whole second half, I decided just to summarize and comment on the story 'The Two Brothers' (which incidentally I titled one of my own retellings last week)!

The Two Brothers:

Okay, so this story is interesting. Two brothers, Anpu and Bata, live together. Anpu is the elder, has a wife, land, oxen, the whole shebang. Bata, for some reason, has chosen to live with his brother and tend the farm for him. He leads a pretty simple but laborous life, tending to the oxen and sowing the fields. But one day, he goes in to gather seed for the field he’s just plowed and his brother’s wife is making the flirty eyes at him. Disgusted and outraged, Bata refuses her and runs back outside. Then Anpu’s wife feels she’s been humiliated and makes it look like Bata beat her when Anpu comes back in. I don’t understand this woman. She has a loving and successful husband, and his brother who may as well be like her child. Can she really be that bored?

Anyway, Anpu tries to kill Bata, Ra intervenes, plays the mediator, and tells Anpu that Bata is innocent. Bata, angry with his brother for not believing his innocence in the first place, runs away to land with acacia trees (but beforehand he tells Anpu that he'll put his soul in an acacia blossom if he ever needs him again).

His elder brother laments and dices up his wife, letting the dogs eat her (a bit drastic, if you ask me).

Meanwhile, Bata makes a hut under an acacia tree and the Gods are like, ‘you know, it’s kind of lonely out here. Let’s give him a wife.’ So they give him a lovely wife and Hathor is jealous of her beauty (because Hathor).

Then while Bata is out hunting one day, his wife steps outside and the sea spirit tries to steal her. She rushes back inside the hut, but that trifling acacia tree gives the sea spirit a lock of her hair. The sea takes it to the palace of the king, and it smells like perfume (for some reason, even though she lives in the desert amongst wild beasts). The King must have her! So he sends men, who are killed by Bata, and then a woman, to collect the mysterious nice-smelling woman. She’s brought back to the palace, tells the king all of Bata’s secrets (such loyalty), and he goes and cuts down the acacia tree which holds Bata’s soul. The moral of this part of the story is to never trust your secrets to pretty women.

Anpu discovers his brother is dead and goes to his acacia tree, searching for his soul. He finds his soul in a seed and takes the seed back to his house and places it in a pitcher of water. This seed absorbs the healing powers of the water and restores Bata back to life (keep this in mind if someone you love dies prematurely).

An acacia blossom, where Bata said he would transfer his soul to.

Image: Wikipedia

I’m actually really curious about Ancient Egyptian necromancy. In many of the myths it was a common theme for the Gods to restore life. What other tales of necromancy are there, I wonder?

Concluding the story, Bata’s soul goes from Bull to tree, finally to boy. His ex-wife tries to finally get rid of him in each carnation, but he’s too crafty. When he’s born unto a woman, the King falls in love with him and names him Prince. When the King finally passes away, Bata gathers everyone around and tells what was done to him by his ex-wife and finally has his revenge.

He and Anpu live the rest of their days as royalty.

Honestly, this story was long, but very interesting and entertaining. I never knew what was going to happen next and it raises many questions for me about the role and magic of necromancy in Egyptian mythology. Is there really a way to put my soul into something and be reborn from it? Ah, what mysteries abound.

Bibliography: 'Egyptian Myths and Legends' by Donald Mackenzie (1907).

Read the stories here!

Week 4 Reading A: Ancient Egypt

This week I chose to read about the stories from Ancient Egypt (mainly because Ancient Egyptian mythology has always fascinated me!)

Creation:

As with most all creation stories, first there was nothing. Well, not really nothing. There was a vast expanse of water, called Nu. From this water came the chief Egyptian deity Ra, and all he saw and desired to come into being, came into being. He created Shu, the Wind God, and his consort Tefnut, the Goddess of rain. Then he created Seb, the Earth God, and Nut, the Goddess who is the dome of the Earth.

When he was done with all this, he became the first King upon Earth and then took a mortal form and walked among men. See, it’s from myths like this that come the stories where Gods walk among humans and still influence their lives today. Who among us might be an undercover deity?

The God Ra by erebus-art

The Secret Name of Ra:

I admire Isis’ cunning. Desiring the secret name of Ra, she deliberately poisons him and, being the chief healer, tells him that the only way for her to cure him of the poison is for him to tell her his true name. Ra doesn’t realize that Isis is the one who actually poisoned him, so he goes ahead and tells her his true name. Such diabolical cunning. I admire this.

Ra and Hathor:

Ra is getting old and the humans are talking about overthrowing him. Upset and angry, Ra bids all the primordial Gods who were with him before humans came into being to visit him in a secret meeting.

He asks them what he should do about his creation of mankind (it kinda reminds me of a young parent asking how to properly discipline a child). The older Gods tell him to throw down his eyes on men and it will become Hathor. Sure enough, his eye is thrown and Hathor goes through and razes the land, putting fear into the hearts of men.

Ra decides he’s not mad at men anymore, so he floods the land with beer. Hathor sees her beautiful reflection and then gets drunk off the beer-flood. The men who worship Ra repent and follow him into battle again.

The Sun’s Journey:

Ra decides to no longer dwell on Earth and instead moves up to the heavens. There, he tells Thoth to go live in the Underworld and write down the sins from the souls of men.

The rest of the story goes on to describe the journey of dead souls to the Underworld. They’re carried on a barque by Ra and he travels along a river to the door of the Underworld, guarded by Isis. Then he drops off the dead, goes about his merry way out of the dark place, and the dead souls are sad because he’s leaving them. So Egyptian souls are carried along a river to the Underworld, too? This sounds a lot like traveling the river Styx to get into Hades…

Osiris:

Osiris is the God-King who succeeds Ra. He is born and Ra retires. Apparently before Osiris came to rule, men were barbarians, and he established law, justice, wisdom, and peace. Way to go, Ra. Leave a mess for Osiris to clean up.

Then he and his wife, Isis, teach men the art of agriculture, and everyone has food and all the people of the land are happy. Meanwhile, Set (Osiris’ brother) is jealous of his fame, and seeks to turn the people against him. Sibling rivalry is always fun!

The Death of Osiris:

Most obvious diabolical plot of all time: Set brings a ‘decorated chest’ (coffin) to a feast of Osiris’ and, because it’s so richly decorated, every man wants the chest for himself. Set proclaims that any man who fills the chest with his body can have it. Of course, he’s tailored the chest to Osiris’ body measurements, so when he lays in it to try the game, BAM, he’s shut in and dies. War and bloodflow ensue. His coffin is tossed into the Nile and goes into the Ocean. Isis, being the badass that she is, sets off with a band of guardian scorpions from Ra to find her dead husband.

Seriously, how is that not obvious? A decorated chest of human proportions is brought to a feast and nobody thinks that Set, Osiris’ obviously jealous brother, is trying to harm him? The Gods must be crazy.

The Journey of Isis:

Oh my goodness, this is almost EXACTLY like the myth of Demeter looking for Persephone after she’s been abducted! She goes off to a distant land, disguises herself as poor, is taken pity on by a wealthy native, and is taken into the home to care for the child! At night, she tries to give the child immortality by putting it into the flames (never really understood how that worked, otherwise I’d be jumping into every fire pit I found). The mother finds the babe, rescues it, denies it immortality, etc. This myth is is pretty much the same with both cultures, which I suppose makes sense because Egypt and Greece engaged in so much trade (culturally and industrially)!

Bibliography: 'Egyptian Myth and Legend' by Donald Mackenzie (1907)
Read the stories here!

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Week 3 Storybook Project: Writing Styles

The storybook project I’ve decided to work with is that of the magical objects. I feel that magical objects play a very important role in many myths and legends, but where do they go after the tale has been told?

I already have an idea of a setting for my storybook, but now I have to figure out a style. I’m almost certain I want to do a frametale style of storybook, but my mind isn’t completely made-up on this yet. Possible objects of interest are the Ulûñsû'tï from Cherokee legend, Excalibur from King Arthur, the Merlin’s magic mirror from the tale of Britomart, Sampo from the Kalevala, and various artifacts from Norse mythology. These are just the ones I know about already, but I’m hoping to expand my knowledge and get a better idea about different artifacts across cultures as the semester goes on.

1st writing style:

This is the one I’ve been thinking of the most. With this first style I want to tell the stories of the magical artifacts from their own point of view, so this would definitely a first-person narrative. I feel this would give more depth and character to the storybook because with each story there would be a different artifact telling it. This opens up so many possibilities for different characters, personalities, dialects, and other great additives to give a story life! With this style I could either go with frametale or anthology, but I haven’t decided yet.

2nd writing style:

This style would be very, very similar to the 1st writing style, but instead of a first-person POV, I think this would be from a third-person POV (for the most part), in where the stories of the magical artifacts would be recounted and told by someone else. I’m imagining the setting for this story either being in a curious antique shop, or in the wagon (or trunk) of a traveling salesman peddling his wares. The time/place setting aspect of this is still undecided. The drawback to this is that I don’t think I’d be able to incorporate as many diverse characters in this story as I would if I were telling the story from the object’s POV.

3rd writing style:

This has the potential to be really fun and would allow me the freedom of combining elements of both the first and second writing styles. With the 3rd writing style, I’m thinking of going deeper into the category of magical objects and instead of just ANY magical object, using magical weapons that were wielded by famous figures in the stories (the spear Gungnir as wielded by Odin, Excalibur by King Arthur, etc.) Unfortunately, this style would narrow down the across-cultures theme I was going for (for now anyway, because I only know of a few famous weapons, and those were wielded by heroes from Europe). I can imagine telling this story by these famous figures from stories gathered around a table at a pub, recalling days of old with their best and most trusted weapons.

4th writing style:

I could completely eliminate all cross-culture variation and just do an anthology of the various magical artifacts presented throughout the Norse myths, because there are A LOT. How I would lay out this storybook is a bit tricky, however. I could go with something similar to writing style 1, where the tales are told from the POV of the artifact in question, or I could tell the stories by way of the artifact’s maker! Many famous magical artifacts in Norse mythology are forged by the dwarves (usually after they’re teased by Loki), so maybe I could tell the story from a third-person storyteller POV also.