Myth and Folklore

It was a lovely spring day on Holloway Farm. The sun was shining, the breeze was crisp, and not a single cloud broke the crystal expanse of the sky. But the silence was cut by a loud and persistent bickering: the spinach just wouldn't seem to shut up. "Really, I don't know who came up with the layout this year. I can hardly breathe with all these tomato plants so close by! And the roots of the cabbage keep creeping up; I'm tired of having to shoo them away." The other vegetables rolled their metaphorical eyes (except for the potatoes, who could actually claim to have eyes). The rutabaga was particularly irked. She was an elderly plant who lived on the other side of the garden, and wished only for calm and quiet in the garden. The whining of the spinach had completely disturbed the serenity of the patch the vegetables called home.  "And the soil this year, it's terribly uncomfortable! Last year's tilling was so soft I might have imagined I w...

Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp Part 1 -Poor tailor with an idle son -Father dies because of son's idleness -African magician shows up claiming to be Aladdin's uncle -Aladdin and his mother have dinner with the strange man -The next day he takes Aladdin to buy fine clothing and begin his transition to a productive human being -The magician leads Aladdin to gardens and then onward toward the mountains -The magician tricks Aladdin into going after a magic lamp -Aladdin wanders through halls and fruit tree gardens, finds, the lamp, and returns -Aladdin refused to give him the lamp, and the magician shuts the door out of the cave -Aladdin cries and ends up rubbing a ring the magician gave him -A genie appears Part 2 -Aladdin returns home -His mother polishes the lamp to get it ready to sell, and another genie appears -The boy asks for food and the lamp genie fetches a feast -The sultan orders all homes shut up as his daughter goes to the ba...

Scheherzade -Sultan is married to a wife whom he loves very much -Discovers his wife had deceived him in terrible ways -Carries out the law of the land by asking the Grand Vizier to out her to death -Becomes convinced that all women are wicked at their core -Decides to marry a fresh wife every evening and have her strangled in the morning        -"Every day saw a girl married and a wife dead" -Grand Vizier' had a daughter named Scheherezade who was clever, beautiful, and courageous -She desires to stop the barbaric practice of the Sultan -Asks to be married to him -Her last wish is to have her sister with her to ask for a story before dawn -And with the beginning of the story she begins her plan to save the girls of the land from the Sultan's terror -Possible story idea: reversed gender roles (dead husbands) The Story of the Merchant and the Genius -A merchant sets out on a business journey -Stops to rest under a tree -A genius comes up to attack hi...