Myth and Folklore

This website is incredible! Before I knew it I had been surfing through the pages for hours. Each time I clicked on one, there would be several other intriguing links on that page that I then wanted to follow up with, and I went in circles connecting ideas and learning about the versatility and breadth of tropes in stories. I've included notes about a few of my favorites below! Killer Rabbit I was immediately drawn to this article, because the title brought to mind the famous scene in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" when the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog rips apart the knights attempting to enter the cave. I love the idea that a creature known for its cuteness and fluffiness can double as a a fierce adversary. In the words of the author, "beware the cute ones." Jizzed In My Pants When I saw this page I couldn't resist clicking on it. I am a huge fan of The Lonely Island, and they have a music video called "Jizz in My Pants." (To my delight,...

"Mom, can we have some cookies?" Zara looked at the eighteen children prancing around her, their eyes filled with a youthful longing for sugar. She had already baked sixty trays of cookies that day, and it hadn't been enough for even half of her children. She had so many children by now that she couldn't remember the exact number, although it totaled somewhere in the 4000s. Her apron was covered in ribbons of butter and dusty trails of flour, and she couldn't fathom rolling out one more ball of dough. "Tomorrow I will have cookies for you my children. Now run along to your other siblings." With disappointed sighs, the pack ran into the woods, where they knew they could find several hundred of their brothers and sisters. Zara's overzealous fertility had been the result of seemingly benign encounter with a fish. As the first woman of earth, Zara had lived peacefully among the valleys and hills that rolled across the land. All was quiet and still ...

The Owl Gets Married  -A widow tells her daughter to marry a good hunter for a husband -A good hunter comes along, and the mother recommends to the daughter that she marry him  -The woman and hunter move in together -The hunter goes out to hunt, but instead goes to fish and returns with only three measly catches  -Returns the next day with two scrawny lizards -And again the next day shows up only with scraps from another hunter's kill -The next day the woman followed out of suspicion -When she came to the river, she saw her husband transform into an owl -The woman felt foolish for having married an owl instead of a man -She hurried ahead and when her husband arrived home she asked where all the fish were that he had caught -He tells her an owl swooped them away -The woman then accuses him of being the owl and sends him away -Alone in the woods, owl wallowed in grief until the only flesh left on his body was on his head  The Crane and th...

How the World Was Made -The earth is floating in a sea of water, suspended by cords hanging down from the sky vault -When the earth grows worn out, everyone will die and the cords will break -The earth will sink into the sea -The animals once lived above the sea, but were crowded -They sent a beetle to explore what was below the ocean to see if they could find a new place to live -When beetle disturbed the mud on the ocean floor it grew into earth -The land was soft and wet, so the animals sent birds to investigate where they could go -When buzzard went down, the swooping of his wings along the muddy ground created mountains and valleys -That is why Cherokee country is so mountainous -When the animals came down it was dark, so they set the sun on a track to go around the earth every day under the sky arch  -At first the sun was too close and scorched the animals -They raised it until it was seven hand breadths above the earth  -The mountain streams l...

This website is absolutely wonderful! It includes lots of fascinating articles that address both very broad and very specific questions about writing. Some of the concepts addressed were ones I would never have thought to seek advice on, but I found to be very helpful. I have included notes on a few of my favorites below! Character Arcs Or Character Development? What’s The Difference? -Character development: how a character changes over the course of a story; linked to plot -Example: Bilbo Baggins; begins his journey in fear and at the end looks at the world with a new sense of wonder -The hero's journey: when a protagonist is reluctant to begin their journey, but by the end has changed to become almost a new person -CD can be positive, negative, or regressive -Can cover for the failings of a story -Character arc: the structure of how a character changes within a story  -Essentially, character arc consists of segments where the character is undergoing distinct chan...

The Man Who Traveled With the Buffalo -A group is tired from outrunning an enemy -Most die, but the survivor sleeps under a tree -Ravens living in the tree converse about the men of the group, who had been killing buffalo -The man is thirsty and journeys to a prairie dog village -One of the prairie dogs brings him water -The man sees a buffalo calf and journeys with him -They come to a group of buffalo and camp with them -When the man wakes the buffalo are gone -He journeys after them, camps with them once again, and in the morning finds them gone -This cycle repeats several times -The chief buffalo speaks to another one of the buffalos about his wife -This buffalo declares that if there is anyone braver than him, he should be entitled to marry his wife -The man is given arrows by the chief buffalo -The man and the other buffalo then engage in battle The Animals Race -The men of the world congregate to run a race to the edge of the world, where a pret...

The Cultures of Heroes and Owl -Kubatc'istcine and Naiyenesgani are companions who go to visit their grandmother -They ask her to make something to play with -Grandmother tells them to go to their father -Their father, the sun, gives them a hoop and pole game and arrows -Tells them not to roll the hoop north -They inevitably do, and it lands in owl's house -Owl's wife chops them up and put them in a pot of boiling water; they tell stories -When she tries to skewer them, they jump out of the pot -Owl determines they are using magic not to die -She then puts them in the ashes and lays a fire on top of them; they tell stories -When she fails again to retrieve them as a cooked meal, owl lets them go -They run home with their toys The Swallowing Monster -A girl finds a dead deer by a lake where she and others are camping -This happens four times, and each time the deer is eaten -One of the campers spies the monster killing the deer -Various m...