Reading Notes: Hiawatha Part B

The animal usage in the second part of the Hiawatha readings stood out to me. "Called the Mama, the woodpecker," and "The Keneu, the great war-eagle," are some examples of the titles. It's amazing how these stories continue to incorporate animals into their tales. I have more reverence now for the Native American epics.

Story source: The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1855).

Reading Notes: Hiawatha Read Part A

The readings this week are unique. It is interesting reading a more poem-style epic similar to the inferno. I typically never thought about or considered native American epics before and it never occurred to me that such epics would exist. However, it makes sense that they would because these people have been around for as long as their western cousins. Anyways, the unit over Hiawatha was really pretty. It combined both stories of people and supernatural forces similar to other epics and was really enjoyable to read. I focused mainly on the style and flow and it was very easy to read.

Little Hiawatha 1937

Bibliography:
The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1855).

Week 10 Lab

I watched the crash course videos over mythology. Those videos are so good and entertaining. My favorite section was the discussion of Joseph Campbell's "Hero's journey." My storybook is on the nostos of The Odyssey so it's really neat learning about the end of the hero's journey. It is also interesting to note how he synthesized Freud and other psychologist's views on myths and the subconscious to interpret what myths mean to us. I never realized that so much of how I view these influential texts are influenced by Campbell's idea of the hero's journey. I often find myself relating to so many stories and it's because I can see myself in them or learning some type of lesson from them. It never occurred to me that the psychological viewing of oneself in those myths is a relatively new idea in the myth world.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrWYQjLLbXcigjUCnKKR86F5zrcQqfiP-

hero's journey

Reading Notes: Alaskan stories part B

The things that I focused on for these readings were the anthropomorphism of the animals. One thing a lot of these Native American stories have in common is they seem equally to equate humans to being like a certain animal and then turning them into that animal itself. This includes sometimes adding those animal's flaws as well. My favorite story was the one about the foc who tricked the eagle into dropping two of its eggs for him. It was really cunning of the fox to do that and as a result he got punished for it. 

fox

bibliography:

Myths and Legends of Alaska, edited by Katharine Berry Judson (1911).

Reading Notes: Alaskan Stories Part A

The use of anthropomorphism in these stories is really interesting. Each animal has its own human-like quality with some animals at some point even turning into humans. I focused on the story-telling in these stories and there were almost some Biblical references such as when the crossing of the sea could not happen because of the tide. It almost sounded like Moses splitting the river. Also, it's pretty neat as Raven is somewhat a creation story but also a trickster story.

raven

Bibliography:

Myths and Legends of Alaska, edited by Katharine Berry Judson (1911).

Week 9 Patrick's Chinese Fairy Tale

There once was a man named Patrick Gui Fe who was full of splendor and wonder. He was the best looking man around. One day, he fell in love with the Empress who was in charge of Egypt as well as the Bikini Bottom Dynasty. Upon the Empress's first interaction with Patrick, she fell in love immediately.

"Oh Patrick, my strong and brave and curious sea star of a man, I love you so much." said the Empress.

Every day it seems, the sea star of a man would drop by the Empress's palace and she would wait patiently outside her balcony singing like a baby bird chirping for her mother to bring her the fresh worms for the day. And like a mother bird answering the calls of her baby, Patrick would swing by like a condor landing upon his nest, and feed his caller.

Quoting from a verse in Auden, Patrick whispers in her ear,


"'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,"

and with that, the lovers went to bed.

As time went on though, the Empress began to neglect her duties. First, the sun stopped shining and then the water stopped moving. Eventually, the grass grew so long that people could not find the path to the road anymore and the citizens of the country began to revolt.

"The Empress is a joke! She has fallen in love with an alien and we cannot have that!" rioted the people.

The started to burn down the palace of the kingdom forcing the Empress and her family to flee.

"This is all your fault, Empress! How could you neglect your duties and the traditions that your family has held for so many generations! It is that sea star's fault! We must kill him!" barked the relatives.

The Empress pleaded for his life, but it seems there was no other way, the people and the relatives have made up their mind.

Racing towards her beloved, she was too late. The Imperial guards snatched Patrick up like a runaway toddler fleeing from his mother for breaking a vase and hung him on a sycamore tree.

Grieving, the Empress prayed for her beloved but to no avail. He was dead.

Slowly, the Empress stopped eating, and she got skinnier and thinner. Her face started to look like a cubone and she cried. Upon seeing this, her most loyal servant, Stinky Guang Ling came up to her and asked if he could be of any assistance. Remembering, that Stinky used to be a member of the Imperial Magicians Court, she told Stinky to make contact with Patrick in the afterlife. Whether it is in Heaven or Hell, if Stinky could bring back her beloved, perhaps she could survive her grief.
And with that Stinky went on his journey to find Patrick.

He looked everywhere, from the deepest circle of hell to the highest parts in paradise and could not find him. He returned to the Empress with the news that Patrick could not be found anywhere, and with that, the Empress cried even harder and threatened to end her own life. Fearing of this, the Magician tried again. He went down to Hell with a flyer of the man's face on it and hassled and rustled every demon he could find and one of the demons mentioned that he heard news of a beautiful sea star in heaven. With that news, the Magician went straight into heaven again and started to harass all the angels until one of them spilled the beans.

*Patrick punches and angel and is curb-stomping him while another angel with a torn wing and bloody nose shows up*

"Where is he, Punk!" yelled the Magician as he struck another blow.

"STOP!!! WE KNOW WHERE HE IS! HE IS HIDING UNDERNEATH A ROCK IN HEAVEN. HE IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SEA STAR! STOP HARASSING US!." cried the other angel.

The magician took his leave and went immediately to the rock. Upon finding it, Patrick was underneath it sleeping like a newborn baby who cried itself to sleep.

Upon entering the abode, Patrick opened his eyes and the strength of ten Hawaiin Breeze fans blew over his the magician's skin.

"Patrick, I have come to take you home! The Empress longs for you and has threatened to end her life unless you come home!" harked the Magician.

"Oh Stinky, I cannot leave this place. For Heaven has declared me their most beautiful and precious sea star and I must stay here and be King of the Stars. Tell my beloved that I have not forgotten her and that I still have the ring that she left me when we first met. Bring this to her and tell her that our love is eternal and I shall never die." said the divine entity.

And with that Patrick's rock closed and the Magician woke up on earth again.

He told the Empress of the news and gave her the ring. The Empress was so impressed and happy that her beloved is still alive and she showered gifts on Stinky.


The Goddess Patrick underneath his rock. source

Author's Notes:
The story is taken from the Chinese fairy tale about Yang Gui Fe, who was the most beautiful lady around. An Emperor fell in love with her and as a result, the kingdom fell to ruin. Eventually, the people wanted her killed and the emperor gave in. Afterward, however, the Emperor was so grieved that one of his assistants had to go up into the afterlife to find Yang Gui Fe again. It turns out she became a goddess.
I wanted to do the same with my story, but I replaced the emperor with an Empress and the beautiful Yang Gui Fe with Patrick Star "Gui Fe." I also made the Empress the owner of Africa.

Bibliography:
Story source: The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).

"As I walked out One Evening" W.H. Auden

Reading Notes: Chinese Fairy tales Part B

Today I focused on the story progressions of these Chinese fairy tales. I'm always quite surprised by how abruptly a lot of them end. For example, the story of retribution made no sense to me. I still do not understand why the story ended or started the way it did. Could it be that the moral is something along the lines of Karma? And you get what you give? However, there were also story lines that really broke my heart like the story with the emperor and the hanging of his wife and he was so grieved afterward that he tried to find her in the otherworlds.

Yang Gui Fe

Bibliography:
The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).