The Myths/Folklore Blog

These Persian stories were very surreal – the characters just seemed to do random things that managed to either work out in a completely different way than you thought or seemed to have no motive. In one story, a woman cuts off her two thumbs in front of her daughter after hearing about multiple other beings doing something similar. From shaking feathers to muddying up the creek, these beings responded to a terrible thing happening in very odd, but somewhat endearing ways. They felt the pain of Mushu, who’s new wife had just drowned in a pot of soup because the wind had pushed her into it (see what I mean by surreal??). The overall tones of the stories reminded me of a simple narrator, that had very odd ideas for what a story was compromised of. They really didn’t have a plot per-say, they mainly focused on the characters doing fantastical things that pushed the story forward in some way. Things “just happened” that didn’t have any forewarning during the story – the second story ...

For this week’s reading, I decided to go over the Ancient Egypt stories because I’ve always found the gods of Egypt extremely interesting. First off, these stories were definitely not what I was expecting – I never realized that the gods of Egypt were at one point human. That makes the gods that much more relatable in the stories told about them, that they walked the Earth just like their believers/subjects, that their power could be seen directly by those who followed them. However, moving on from this, some of these stories were a little disturbing. The most obvious disturbing event from these stories happened in the “Death of Osiris” story, where his brother Set tricks him into laying in a coffin, thereby trapping and killing him. Furthermore, the coffin is thrown into the Nile, where it eventually lands in Syria. It doesn’t end there, though. Osiris’s wife, Isis is so distraught over his death that she endlessly looks for his coffin – when she finds it, she winds up slaying m...

For my Storybook project this semester, I'll be diving into Texan urban legends, namely those that deal with ghosts.  Themes that I'll try to explore are going to be: loss, relationships and how they can spiral out of control, and family ties. Ghost stories, namely urban legends are "based" in reality, so each of the stories that I'll be telling will be heavily connected to real life, meaning less of a "myth" and more of a realistic fiction story. Story sources can come from a number of places - the best resource for figuring out the "basis" of the urban legends comes from Weird U.S ., a site that delves into odd American history, folklore, and culture specific for every state. They have a bunch of urban legends within the website (and I have the book at home) so this source will be extremely good for gathering ideas and how to tell the story.  The writing style that I'll be using is going to vary with each of the stories that...

Texas Urban Legends La Llorona By Denise Rowlands , Flickr Click HERE to visit my Storybook!

The Crash Course videos provided some insights into myths and mythology that I previously had never given any thought to. Theories of myths are something that seems pointless at the surface level – why do we need to understand where/why myths exist? They’re just stories for people to tell one another. However, after these videos, I’ve gotten more of an understanding of the theories and the people who propose them. First off, I thought it was interesting that even during the time when myths were being invented/spread around more so, people were critiquing and analyzing them. Xenophanes was criticizing myths during the Greek period – that myths provided dangerous information, pushing the faults of man over to random gods that people worshiped. Another viewpoint, when looking back to the early time periods, is the belief that myths could be considered rudimentary science. As in, since myths were people trying to explain why things are the way they are in a very un-scientific manner ...

The next set of readings that I did delved mainly into Odysseus dealing with the ghosts of those who are found in Hades after dying. He needed to deal with them in these stories in order to gain a prophesy from Teiresias. This type of thing within a story (an oracle) can lead to some great plot points, especially if they’re crafted in a way as to not give away the entire story, but add some tension to it, dreading what is going to happen in the future. I felt sorry for multiple of the ghosts, mainly Elpenor, who died because he got too drunk to remember where he fell asleep, leading him to plunge to his death from a roof, breaking his neck. This death just seemed pointless except for the fact that now Odysseus had to go back to Circe and gather his body to burn it. The idea of communicating with the dead from our past has some importance, especially when it’s a beloved friend or family member. The emotional significance for the hero of the story when he meets his mother’s ghost is...