Essay Week 11: English Fairy Tales

For this weeks reading I chose to read a fairy tales unit! I have not really read any of the fairy tale units from the sections so far, so I was initially very excited to read this section! There were two sections I could have chosen from. I decided to go with the one that felt most familiar with me. I recognized some of the stories that were in this unit and that was something I was also very excited about! It was great to get to re-read some of the stories that I have not heard since I was a child. Although, I think the stories I heard were a little different, like the Three Pigs and Henny-Penny. The stories I heard were passed down orally. My great-grandmother passed them to my grandmother and her to my mother and then to me and my brothers. I really appreciate this aspect of learning about folklore in my own family and I had never really put much thought into it until now. I love that my family was able to contribute to my knowledge of the world as a child through oral storytelling. If you are interested in reading some of my favorite stories from this weeks reading you can find that here.

I really liked reading the English Fairy Tales Unit, but I do have to say that it has not been my absolute favorite Unit, but it is still pretty good and well worth my time as a student. I am more than happy to read these tales for a grade! Haha. It seems like some of my favorite units were in week 4-6. However, I must emphasize that I have loved every unit in one way or another so far and I feel as though I am learning a lot from these story analysis!

Family Image - Taken by Myself

Essay Week 10: British North America

For this weeks readings I chose to read from the Un-textbook Native American section a unit titled British North America!!! This unit was very diverse in the types of reading I was able to get from the unit! I really like that aspect of the reading. Not only was I able to get some creation stories, but also stories about how mounts formed, how fire was made and animals stories too! I really enjoyed reading this unit! If you are interested you can look at some of my favorite stories from my blog post here. I chose this unit because it goes well with the reading unit I chose last week (Pacific NW Unit). Both of these Units were about peoples and cultures form Upper North America which just so happens to be the area I am interested in researching and working with Anthropologically and Archaeologically. I am really glad we were able to use time in this class to look at Native American Mythology and Folklore. I believe these peoples created some of the most beautiful stories I have ever herd!

It is incredible to think that we are so far along into the semester! As I sit here watching American Horror Story and write this essay I can help but think how amazing it is that the end of the semester is upon us soon. Good luck to all of you in your endeavors with the future. 

Indian Dancers

Essay Week 9: Pacific NW

This week I read from the Un-textbook in the Native American section a unit call Pacific NW! I really had a blast reading the stories within this particular unit and I would like to start out by saying tat I would definitely suggest everyone read this unit! I was particularly excited about the origin stories within this unit. If you are interested I wrote about my favorite stories in the Pacific NW unit here. I really love the Pacific North West and that is why I was so excited to see it in the Un-Textbook. I am really glad that we get to spend two weeks on Native American Mythology and Folklore. 

Mount Hood, Oregon

Being a student at the University of Oklahoma, I have found that Native American heritage affects my life in many more ways than I ever thought would be possible. From working at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art and with the Native American Curator there to working at the Oklahoma Archaeological Survey with Native American Artifacts and Burials it is truly inspiring to see Native culture all around me. I think my favorite story from this unit is the Native American origin story How Old Man above Created the World. I choose not to use it for my storytelling post because I did not think I would be able to retell the story with my own spin on it. Actually, that was a theme I found throughout the Native American Unit. It was hard for me to retell these stories because the originals were already so bold and interesting. I think in the end I choose to retell a great story and it worked out well. Again, I would definitely recommend this unit to anyone who is interested in reading it! 

Essay Week 7: Congo Unit

This week I read from the Congo Unit in the Myth and Folklore Un-Textbook out of the African Unit! I found these readings to be very enjoyable and I am glad that I choose to read them for this week. A major factor into me choosing to read this unit was that it paired nicely with my Storybook Project of Tales of the Undead. The Congo Unit focused nicely on some magic and resurrection of the dead. I was a little sadden because I did not find any stories that I particularly want to retell. I think one of the things that I enjoyed most about this unit was the storytelling methods! All the stories were told in a new way and I found it very interesting! My favorite story in this unit was the story titled How the Lives Restored their Husband to Life! It was a great story that became a great compliment to my Storybook Project! I was really excited about that ability to include a story from the Congo Unit into my storybook project, but I have decided to not use it for this project. Overall, I am very glad I was able to pick up this Unit! I very much enjoyed the Unit and I am glad to see it in the Myth and Folklore Un-Textbook.

Malawi waYao Tribe Members

Essay Week 6: Asia Mythology and Folklore

This week I read Tibetan Folk Tales for the Asia Unit in the Mythology and Folklore Un-Textbook. I found this reading to be very fun to read. In fact, it may be one of my favorite things I have read this semester! I can definitely see the appeal to Asian Mythology. I imagine one could spend a whole semester talking only on Asian Mythology and Folklore! In the Tibetan Folk tales Unit I most definitely had some favorite stories which you can see here. I really choose this reading because I initially saw that in this Unit was some magic and I just could not resist. Looking back on my decision I could not be happier about the decision! I especially loved that at the beginning of each story was a Tibetan Proverb. It was very interesting to here these proverbs, even though some of the did not make a lot of sense until I read the story with it. My favorite story and the one I choose to do my storytelling post over was The Man and the Monkey. I found this story to be incredibly interesting. At first I was perplexed by the story and why the man would want to kill the monkeys after they had saved him. It seemed like many of the Tibetan stories were focused on the “ingratitude” of man. This is definitely a Unit that I would recommend to anyone who is interested in animals, magic, and folklore!

Tibetan Family Attending Horse Festival

Essay Week 5: India Mythology

This week I read Twenty-Two Goblins from the India Reading Unit in the Mythology-Folklore Un-Textbook. I thought this reading was super fun! I loved the India Unit of the Un-Textbook and found both the readings I did from this section to be the best readings thus far! I can definitely see why someone would want to read India Epics forever! In the Twenty-Two Goblins Unit I definitely had some favorite tales which you can see here. I really enjoyed the layout and the style of this unit. The idea that this king would go back again and again to get the body and bring it to the priest was really cool. I though the goblin character was also really interesting in his character development. In this reading unit there was some very strange stories. One of my favorites was the Three Delicate Wives who were bruised by a flower petal, burned by the moon beam and hurt by the sound of a pestle; very interesting reads! Overall I really enjoyed this reading and I think it would be hard to improve on it. Going into this reading unit it was exactly as I expected it to be from the synopsis, but at the same time it was so much more (like I was saying the back story in this unit was very poetic).

Shiva Statue, Bangalore

Another thing I was very impressed with in the Twenty-Two Goblins Tales Unit was its shortness. It took me almost no time at all to read the unit! I think the stories themselves were a little longer than average, but this made it possible for fewer stories and I think made the unit an easier read. Plus, because the actual stories were longer they had more detail in them and that just adds to the fun! I was very impressed with the readings and I am so glad that I was able to read this as a part of my Mythology and Folklore Course. This is definitely a unit that I would not want to see disappear!

Essay Week 4: The Many Reincarnations of Buddha

For this weeks reading I read the Jataka Tales Unit by Shedlock. I have to say that I really did enjoy reading these stories. Because of how fun the stories were I think I have decided to read another Indian Unit, but I have not chosen yet which one. I obviously had some favorites from the reading that you can see here, but in reality it was very difficult to choose just a couple of readings to pick as my favorite. I think one of the most enjoyable things about this reading unit was the take on the different animals that were the reincarnation of Buddha! It was very fun to find out the moral of the story and see how everything panned out. I also really liked that all of the reading were under 800 words. This made reading a breeze because I was able to take pauses if I need to and the stories did not get too long and boring. They were kept short and pretty understandable for the main point. This is something that I had trouble with in the Odyssey Unit. 

Buddha: Philosophers of the Axial Age

I think this reading would go really well with pretty much any other reading about Buddha. In terms of background information that I would have wanted I think some more insight into Buddhism Philosophy in the introduction would have been useful. I think I understood the readings pretty well, but it may have been more enhanced with some more general knowledge about Buddhist Philosophy. I found the readings so interesting that I ended up doing some research on my own anyways!

I was not expecting to do a reading like The Jataka Tales Unit, but I am very happy it has found its way to me. They are simple and straight forward reads and they could be very easily compared to Aesop's Fables. I would highly recommend reading either one of the Jakata Tales Unit Readings!

Week 2: Essay Homer’s The Iliad

For this week I read Homer’s The Iliad. I really enjoyed reading this story even though I have read the story before. It has been quite a while, sometime in high school, since I last read the Iliad. I was quite surprised at just how much I had forgotten about the tale, but when I finished the reading I was very happy that I took the time to re-read, or listen to, the story. Since I have read the story before I already knew the background story, but if I was reading this story for the first time I might have been confused about the beginning and how the whole war was started. It went by pretty fast in the chapters.

Something else I would consider telling perspective reader in Mythology and Folklore course might be that it was a little difficult for me to try to write my storytelling post. Personally, it was much easier for me to write a storytelling post from the Aesop’s Fables. This, of course, is in part because Aesop made his fables so easily understood; and perhaps The Iliad just needs a person with a little bit more of a... creative imagination. I chose this reading because I thought having read it before I might be able to better grasp Mythology and Folklore, as opposed to jumping head first into the deep pool of Mythology. I hope this tale of the Iliad is a good icebreaker into the course of Mythology and Folklore. 

This unit was a superb one. I was very glad to see it on the reading list. I think the most rewarding thing I learned from this unit may be a new writing style. As I mentioned above, one of the hardest things for me this week was writing the Storytelling Blog Post. While I had a difficult time writing the post, I think I also made tremendous headway in terms of developing a new writing style. 

Achilles Warrior