Portfolio Index

Welcome to my portfolio! These are some of my favorite stories from my semester in Mythology and Folklore. I hope you enjoy them!

Week 5: Storytelling: Big Brother and Little Brother

Dive into the fascinating tale of two brothers as you venture through their life and see the challenges they face from growing up very close and then drifting away as they grew up.  Although they drifted apart and went their separate ways for a time period in their life, they will realize that families and the bond between brothers will always be a part of them.

Week 6: Storytelling: How The Ugly Man Got Married

This old tale is about another boy that did everything he could to be perfect but nothing in life seemed to be going his way.  He heard about a certain challenge from the King, and at the moment, he knew that this was a challenge he had to accept.  Read this story to see if Robert can fulfill the King's challenge and live happily ever after.

Week 9: The North Wind

Have you ever wondered how the seasons were started? It was by the different winds from the north and the south, of course! This is what the fairy tales in the American Indian unit explain.  Read about how a brave and courageous man was willing to risk him life to bring back the nice summer weather for him and the other people in his village.

Week 12: Alice Back In Wonderland

Think about what you would think about one of your best friends coming to school one day and telling you that she fell down a hole and became friends with rabbits and caterpillars.  How about if they told you that they drank a potion that made them shrink and ate some cake that made them grow.  Well, in this story, Alice is telling her friends about this "dream" she had one night that she's not so sure was only a dream. 

Week 12 Storytelling: Alice Wanting To Go Back to Wonderland

Storytelling: Alice in Wonderland

A couple nights ago, the craziest thing happened to me.  I woke up in a frantic sweat from a dream I had about falling down a very deep well and my adventures with a weird rabbit that worried about time too much, a mad hatter who a big giant hat, and so many more crazy people that I have never seen before in my life.

I would have thought it was all just a crazy dream from eating pizza too close to bedtime, but when I woke up with a little bottle from my dream in my pocket, I started to wonder. 

“Could this have been real?” I thought to myself as I looked at the bottle and the little bit of icing on my face from the cake I ate in my dream, too.  This was all way too much of a coincidence to have only been a dream.

I woke up, looked at my clock, and realized I was very late for school.

“I’m late, I’m so late!” I kept saying over and over to myself.  I paused for a second and knew that I had heard that before.  A light bulb turned on inside my head and flashbacks from the white-haired, red-eyed rabbit from my dream raced through my head. 

“It’s all just a dream, it’s all just a dream,” I had to keep reminding myself throughout the day.  I tried to tell my friends about it, but they all just laughed in my face and teased me about it.

“You’re crazy, Alice!” Mariah yelled to my face during my first class.

When I tried telling Becca, she said I should be put in a crazy house because something like that could never happen.  I thought for sure they might believe me at least a little bit.  At that point in the day I knew I was right about all the events that happened that night.  Too many signs reflected what happened that night that it had to have happened. 

Every night since then I have tried to look down the same special well and do everything the same as the night I fell down that deep well and found myself surrounded by bookcases, lamps, and cup-boards.  I didn’t understand why it wouldn’t happen again.  Nothing seemed to make sense anymore.  Nothing lined up to what happened that night. 

It wasn’t until this morning as I was getting on my bike to ride to school that I found something shiny on the ground.  I picked up the object and I knew I had seen this before.  It was a watch, but not a normal watch.  It said the day of the month instead of the time. 

“It’s the rabbit’s watch!” I yelled out so loud that people a mile away could hear me.  This was just what I needed to get back to the Wonderland that I was in before.  It seemed crazy but I wanted to go back.  I needed a land away form earth for a while.  As I picked up the watch, I turned it around and it read, “You’re late, you’re late! Please come back at this date!”

I turned the watch around again and November 15^th was circled in what looked like the strangely colored butter from the tea party I attended.  Why, November 15^th is only a few days away! I couldn’t wait to go back and see what other shenanigans I could get myself into and other weird and crazy friends that I could meet.

[Source]

 Bibliography:  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll.  Alice in Wonderland Unit.

Author’s Note:

This story originated from the famous story of Alice in Wonderland that many people are fairly familiar with.  After reading the stories in the unit, I thought to myself about how her friends probably felt when she told all of them about her experience.  I decided to write a story about the situations she probably got herself into after the dream and the aftermath of the experience.  It was important to me while I was writing this story that I added many clues to portray that the story was real.  I was already familiar with the story, so I combined all of it and took my favorite parts out of the story to write about in my post.  I added the part about her finding the watch that belonged to the rabbit with the date on it to venture into the idea of possibly writing a second story to follow this one about her adventures back into Wonderland.  Maybe next time, she can bring someone else with her so they don’t all look at her crazy.

 

Storytelling: Week 9: The North Wind

There’s nothing better than the cold, icy wind of winter.  Those icicles everywhere around you and the beautiful color of white fills the Earth.  I am the reason why the earth is so amazingly filled with snow throughout every sun and moon.  There are very few in my land so that makes my job of ruling the land even easier!  I’m not much of a people person.  You see, my brother is the ruler of the summer with all the colors, and plants, and animals, and blah, blah, blah.  I’m so tired of everyone talking about how much they love the summer.  Growing up, no one wanted to talk to me because everyone thought I was cold.  It was my brother that had all the attention and friends.  I never thought it was fair as a child, but there was nothing I could do about it.  I don't want to be the ruler of summer. That weather makes me cringe and there's always way too much going on, too much to handle.  So now, I choose to live alone by myself and I’m loving every minute of it.

After many years of enjoying my life alone and isolated, a fisherman entered my land and overstayed his welcome.  I do not like visitors, and I like to keep the icy land to only me and the fishes under the ice-covered oceans.  This fisherman not only stayed on my icy land for far too long even after I covered him in heavy snow and ice, but he also cut holes in my icy-covered waters to catch my fish. No one comes to my land and messes up my perfectly smooth oceans.  No one comes and steals all my fish either. 

I had to do something to get him out of here, but I have never had anyone try to withstand my powerful and brutally frigid winds.  So I began to make the snow even deeper and deeper and the wind stronger and stronger.  Surely he would leave after his whole body was covered in frost bite. 

I woke up the next day and the fisherman was still there in his tent with a giant fire to keep him warm.  This was a tougher challenge.  So I spent that whole day blowing giant gusts of freezing winds towards him.  Maybe I could blow out the fire that kept him warm? Those fires always scare me anyways.  Maybe I could blow away his tent so he won't have a place to keep him safe? I didn’t care what I have to do. I just wanted him off my land. 

The next sun when the fisherman was still standing firm on my land, we began to fight.  His fire was making me melt and warm up.  I like to stay cold and that is when I am the most powerful.  I couldn’t let him beat me on my own turf.  Pretty soon, I could not fight any longer.  I had to surrender because I had no other choice.  My weak breath could not fight for one second longer.  I watched him stay there and fish on my land while I lay there on my ice and couldn’t do anything about it.

This was the day I was finally overtaken.

Author's Note:

 This is from the original American Indian Fairy Tale, Shin-ge-bis Fools the North Wind. I really enjoyed all the stories from this unit because I felt like each story was so creative. This is what they believed actually happened and how the seasons were created.   I took this story and portrayed it from the point of view of the North Wind.  The North Wind was the bad guy in the original story because he was doing everything he could to keep the tribe off his land in the winter, but all they wanted to do was fish for food so they would not be hungry.  It wasn't until one day that a fisherman stood up to the North Wind and finally overtook him.  His whole tribe told him not to do it because no one had successfully defeat the North Wind, but he was determined and nothing could stop him.  I kept the general story the same but changed the point of view from the fisherman to the North Wind.  I took out a few parts to really focus on the scenes that I felt were the most entertaining and imperative.  I tried to keep the Native American appeal by putting the focus on the land and the wind rather than something that was not earth-related.  As I read this story, I kept picturing the abominable snowman so I chose an image to portray how I pictured the story.

[Source]

Bibliography:
"Shin-ge-bis Fools the North Wind" by W.T. Larned. American Indian Fairy Tales Unit.

Storytelling Week 6: How The Ugly Man Got Married

How The Ugly Man Got Married (based off the original How Gazelle Got Married)

There once was a man named Robert. He wasn’t the most handsome in the village, but in fact, he was the ugliest in the village.  Growing up, his "desire to be perfect" parents always thought he was going to change from being ugly to handsome. 

“Pretty soon, he will grow out of his baby fat.” 

“Pretty soon, he will grow into his nose.”

“Pretty soon, his pimples will go away, and he will have the clearest skin.”

“Pretty soon, he will gain some muscle and won’t be as lanky.”

“Pretty soon, he will learn to have the wits that will swoop any woman off her feet,” exclaimed Mama all throughout Robert’s life. 

Although she loved her son very very much, she always hoped that he would become the handsome man who would give her perfect and beautiful grandchildren to spoil rotten.  One day, she found the perfect opportunity for Robert to get two beautiful wives!

The king of the village was a very powerful and noble man that everyone looked up to, and he had two twin daughters that he kept a secret to the outside world.  He kept them so much of a secret that nobody even knew their names.  So one day, the king realized that they would have to meet someone and marry a man some day. 

“Any man that can find out the names of my two daughters can have their hands in marriage,” proclaimed the king to the whole village. 

When Robert heard the message from the king, he knew this was his opportunity to find not only one beautiful wife, but two beautiful wives! All he had to do was figure out the names of the king’s daughters.  Robert and his dog ventured off to the castle in the middle of the village to talk to the king about the challenge to win over his daughters. 

When Robert arrived at the castle, he talked to the king to try and guess their names.

“Ashley and Rachel? Alyssa and Brooke? Carly and Mariah? Rebecca and Raquel?” guessed Robert. 

The king quickly stopped him and told him that none of those are the right answers, and he would be there for years if he kept up with that jibber jabber.

As the king released him to take a walk around the castle, his dog stayed inside.  This was no ordinary dog.  Robert’s dog could talk just like humans but only spoke when Robert spoke to him.  So once Robert left and the dog stayed inside, the King called his daughters by name down to the dining room for dinner.  

“Laurie, Landry, come down for dinner and feed the dog in the entry room, too!” yelled the king to his daughters.

The dog all of a sudden perked his ears up and knew he had to tell Robert the names of the King’s daughters.  The girls fed the dog, and he ran away to find Robert.  On his way to tell his master, the dog became very thirsty from the food and searched for water instead.  Once he found Robert, the dog had already forgotten the names of the two daughters.  The dog returned to the castle to try to find out the names of the daughters once again.

As the dog ran back inside the castle, the family was just finishing up dinner and the king, again, yelled the names of his daughters.  

“Laurie, Landry, don’t forget about the Grand Ball tomorrow night, and give more food and water to the dog,” the king yelled loudly.

The dog’s ears perked up again.  So again, the dog ate and drank the water they gave him, and he set out again to find his master. 

Once the dog found Robert, the dog immediately told Robert the names of the daughters, and they both raced back to the castle.  Robert told the king the names of his daughters.  Although the king was baffled and did not understand how Robert had figured out his daughter's names, the king did make a deal that he had to uphold.  The king granted Robert the right to marry his two daughters.  Although it took some getting used to from the two girls and Robert, they all lived happily ever after.

[Source]

Author’s Note:

This story is based off of the original story of How Gazelle Got Married in the Stories from Congo unit.  I kept the basic underlying story about how the daughters were up for marriage and whoever could guess their names could have their hand in marriage, but I added a beginning to the story and changed the characters.  The dog helped in the original story, too, but kept forgetting the names of the daughters just like in my story.  I changed the main character to a man to make the story a little bit easier to understand and added some character development of the man to know his background.  The main character is easy to sympathize with because he acts as the underdog in the situation.  No one would have expected this not-so-popular man to marry, not only one of the King's daughters but both of them! I really enjoyed this story and I loved the part about the dog helping out but forgetting the names so many times. So I kept most of that in my retold story.  Although this story would never happen in real life, I feel like I made it more relatable and a little more comical than the original story.

Bibliography:

"How Gazelle Got Married" by Richard Edward Dennett (1898).  Notes on the Folklore of Fjort.

Storytelling Week 5: Big Brother and Little Brother

Big Brother and Little Brother

Many years ago, there were two brothers that grew up together as best friends.  As they grew older, the older brother, Andrew, began to mature.  He finished school, found a beautiful wife, started a family, and moved out to a vineyard.  Meanwhile, the younger brother, Ben, had a little bit of trouble growing up and wasn’t quite ready to become an adult.

As years went on, Andrew became very successful with his company, earned millions of dollars, and his personality changed for the worse.  He became mad and uptight. He was selfish and very conceited, although, after a little convincing, Andrew agreed to let Ben stay in his house as long as he did all the chores, kept up with all the animals, and slept outside in the barn. "The only way you can stay here, Ben, is if you clean up after my animals and do all my field work for me.  As long as you continue to do my work, you can stay here and I'll look after you," explained Andrew to Ben when he begged and pleaded to stay with him. 

Andrew’s wife acted the same way as Andrew and didn’t think Ben deserved to be in their presence, so she ordered him and ordered him around in hopes that he would leave.  "Do this, clean that, wash these, and don't mess up," ordered the wife as Ben slaved away at their work while she stayed inside and didn't have to worry about anything.  If he messed up even one time on something small or failed to complete one task before sundown, the wife would beat the little brother until he cried and learned to work faster.  Although Ben was grateful for a roof over his head, he was also stubborn.  Ben was sick of being ordered around and beaten by the wife, so one day he yelled at her until she was too scared to talk to him any longer. 

The older brother came home to find his wife in the back of a closet shaking because she was scared of the little brother.  She accused him of beating her and hurting her so the older brother stormed out of the house to kill the younger brother.  Andrew wanted to make sure that could never happen to his wife again.  Ben begged and pleaded with Andrew for him not to hurt him and he tried explaining himself but Andrew didn’t believe him.  He tried everything he could for his brother to believe him but nothing was working and Andrew wouldn't stray away from what his wife proclaimed.  Something in the back of Andrew's head knew he should listen to his little brother instead, but he stuck to his wife's accusation and continued on with the fight.

Ben had nothing else to do but pray to God for help.  Running in the middle of the vineyard, Ben asked God if there was anything He could do to help him.  All of a sudden, a giant river came rushing through separating the two brothers so Andrew could no longer reach Ben to kill him.  Ben thanked God and kept running for the hills.

He found a little shack in the middle of the woods hundreds of miles away from his older brother and all of civilization so nobody could find him.  Although Ben had run away from Andrew, the connection the brothers had from when they were younger was still present.  As children, they made a pact with an angel that they would always stick together no matter what.  "Stuck like glue, you two, will be blue without the company of you," the angel said to them.  If anything were to happen to one another, the angel would send out signs to the other for protection.

One day, years after Ben ran deep into the woods, he came in contact with a disease carried by insects, lost the fight, and passed away.  With the angels above looking down on them for protection,  Andrew rapidly received signals and he knew something wasn’t right. He had to search and seek out his little brother.  After weeks of searching, Andrew found his little brother in the middle of the woods and prayed to God over him again. 

All of a sudden, right before Andrew's eyes, Ben awoke from the dead.  He awoke not in the human form but in the form of a horse that used to roam the vineyards.  The angel that created the powerful bond between the two brothers came down and explained everything that had happened to Andrew.  One could not be on this Earth without the other.  Even if Ben is a horse, they will always be together. Now, his little brother will always protect Andrew, and Ben will always be with his older brother. 

[Source]

Author’s Note:

The original story of The Two Brothers was a story about two brothers by the names of Anpu and Bata.  The two brothers were very close growing up. Bata worked for Anpu as a cowherd.  Anpu's wife came on to Bata, so Anpu decided to kill his brother.  In my retelling of this story, I felt uncomfortable talking about how the wife seduced the younger brother, so I changed it to verbally abusing Bata.  After the younger brother ran far away, he started his own life and got married, but the brothers did always have a special connection that no one quite understood.  When the younger brother died, the older brother was sent messages to let him know that his little brother had died so he had to search for him.  When the older brother found him, he tried to revive him and his soul came back as a sacred bull that eventually got sacrificed. 

In the new story, I changed the bull to a horse because it is more applicable to our culture.  The original story also had the river separating the two brothers so Anpu would not kill Bata right away.  That gave Bata time to run and hide.  I added the supernatural character of the angel coming down to bring the brothers together and add a deeper connection.  I felt like the sending of the signals needed to be done by another force that looked over them so angels popped into my mind.  I changed the setting that the original story was taken place.  The original story took place in the ancient Egypt and included a wife that seduced the little brother.  Although those aspects of the story changed, the underlying meaning stayed the same.


Bibliography
"The Two Brothers" by Donald Mackenzie (1907). Website: Ancient Egypt Unit.