Extra Reading Diary: Russian Folktales

Russian Folktales:

"The Dead Mother": A babies mother dies and every day the baby would cry until nighttime when they heard someone go into the room. The family then hid until the someone came into the room. They realized it had been the mother then went to the baby and it was dead.

"The Treasure": An old man went to burry his wife and found a pot of gold in which he paid for the funeral and a fine feast after. The pope became greedy and came to trick the old man out of his money. The sheep suit the pope wore to trick the old man was then stuck to his body and wouldn't come off.

"The Bad Wife": There was a man with a bad wife. She did not listen to him and always did the exact opposite. One day he trapped her in a bottomless pit. After a few days he threw a rope to get her out and out crawled a demon begging the man to not send him back for the wife was awful. The demon helped the man obtain countless amounts of money. Afterwards the man tricked the demon back into the pit.

"The Three Copecks": An orphan received a cat and let a merchant take it with him across the sea. When the merchant was in a inn the keeper asked for the cat and gave him a large amount of gold for it. When returned to the land he gave the orphan the gold and the boy went and bought incense with the gold and burned it. An old man appeared and gave him a wife.

"The Miser": A rich man owed a poor old man money and could not pay him back because he didn't have enough change. He then tried to trick the old man into thinking he was dead and eventually gave in and split all of his money with the old man.

"The Water Snake": A girl married a snake and when she went home for a visit her mother snuck off and killed the snake. The girl fried and told her two children to fly off as bird.

A copeck from the stories

Storytelling for Week 6: The Great Build

Hello. My name is Phil and I am what most humans call a leopard. One day I had a great idea that my son and I needed a new house. I knew of the perfect place to start a clearing and begin building my house. By the time that I traveled to the location, the lot had already been cleared and minor work had been done to start the groundwork for the house. It had look to me as if it had been abandoned for quite some time so I decided to start working from where the previous wok was left off. After a long evening of working on the house I had returned home to sleep.

The next day I came to work on my house but to my astonishment it had been completed further than I had remembered. I thought to my self that I had finished that much work but I must have just not remembered from being so tired. Because of the lack of light in the late evening I must've not remembered what it had looked like. I continued to do some of the work and had to redo some of the work. Some of the construction wasn't built the way I would have built it so some of the structure had to be torn down and rebuilt. A few weeks of this went on and I finally finished my house.

On move in day my son and I gathered up all of our stuff and moved everything to our new house. Upon arriving at our new house we saw a ram and his child approach the house. I had thought they were there to greet us into our new house. When we approached the ram and his son, they began to unload a few things and asked us what we thought of their new house. With great confusion I asked "What in the world do you mean? This is our house that I have built for months". He seemed to be very confused and told me the exact same thing! Very confused we realized the work that seemed to be done when the other wasn't around was actually being done by one another. After a few minutes of laughing and coming to a conclusion we decided that we had built the house big enough that all four of us would be able to live together.

After a few months of us living together we were still getting along very well but I became very curious about how the ram was killing his prey to get meat because he had no claws or sharp teeth to kill with. I asked my son, "the next day when we go out to get food as the ram's son how his father kills his prey". After returning from my daily hunt I asked my son if had acquired the answer that I asked of him. He proceeded to show me how the ram would back up before killing his prey and share at them with his horns. I told my son that whenever he sees a ram back up that he must be getting ready to kill.

One evening I was preparing for dinner like I do every evening. I called for my friend and his son to come join my son and I for dinner. When they were approaching the dinner table the ram slipped on the muddy ground and started backing up. I told my son to run for the ram was about to attempt to kill us. Ever since then the ram has lived in the house while we have lived in the forest.

Mr. Phil aka the leopard

Author's Note

The original story is "The Leopard and the Ram". The story is the exact same except the original is told in the third person style instead of first person. I enjoy writing stories in the first person sense because it seems to give the character whose telling the story more of a personal sense instead of just a character without thought. 

Reading Diary B: West African Folktales

West African Folktales:

"The Moon and Stars": Anansi and his son help prisoners of the dragon escape and are rewarded by becoming the sun (Kweku Tsin), the moon (Anansi), and the stars (other prisoners)

"How the Tortoise Got Its Shell": The creation of the tortoise was made by him being smothered by a heavy pot and being rained on for months where is caked the pot and dust to his back.

"The Hunter and the Tortoise": The story is about a man finding a singing tortoise and takes her home with him but breaks a promise to her and is killed for his lying.

"The Leopard and the Ram": The story is about how the ram and leopard once lived together but the ram scared the leopard away and has ever since live in the house while the leopard lived in the woods.

"King Chameleon and the Animals": This story is about how the chameleon cheated his way into the king's position but no one would be apart of his kingdom so in reality he was no king.

"Elephant and Wren": The spider cheated in cutting down a tree with a wooden ax and on his way home tried to capture a wren for his families dinner so he could keep the elephant to himself when the elephant escaped.

"The Ungrateful Man": A hunter helped various animals out of a hole and was later betrayed by the human and sent to prison. The hunter saved the kings life and was let go and the human was beheaded.

"Why Tigers Never Attack Men Unless They Are Provoked": A tiger and a man meet in the woods and decided to live with one another. The man's friends shot the tiger and the tiger told his friend he would never harm a human unless provoked.

"How Mushrooms First Grew": Two men in debt wore robbed by a batfowl who was robbed by a tree who was robbed by an elephant who was robbed by a hunter who was robbed by a stump who was robbed by ant. The ant paid off their debts by making mushrooms for eating.

"Farmer Mybrow and the Fairies": Mybrow created a magnificent field with the use of the fairies. Mybrow told his wife where his field was on one condition, that she not answer any questions while there. When she answered the fairies asking who she was the fairies destroyed the field.

An African Tiger

Reading Diary A: West African Folktales

West African Folktales:

"How we got the name "Spider Tales"": This story is about the challenges faced by Anasi in trying to get the men to tell stories of himself instead of Nyankupon who is the chief of gods. Nyankupon told him he would tell the men of his wishes if he could collect a jar full of bees, a boa, and a tiger. Anahi did and so became the Spider Tales.

"How wisdom because the property of the human race": Anansi grew angry with the humans and took their wisdom away and stored it in a pot. He took the pot far into the woods to hide it at the top of a tall tree. He was unable to hide the pot because it was hanging around his neck and kept him from climbing the tree. After watching, Anansi's son told him to carry it on his back. Angry, Anansi threw the pot down anti broke, releasing the wisdom back into the world.

"Anansi and Nothing": The story is about Anansi and Nothing. Anansi was poor while Nothing was very wealthy. They went to the town to find wives. While they were on their way they switched clothes so that Anansi would be able to get wives. Announce, dressed in elegant clothes, gathered many wives while Nothing only acquired one. When arriving back at their respective homes, Anansi's wives were upset because of his small hut. Anna's wives went to Nothing's palace. Anansi became angry and left killed Nothing.

"Thunder and Anansi": Anansi goes out to find food when he sees a palm tree across the water. He takes an old boat out to the tree to obtain the nuts from the tree. Missing the boat and falling in the water, Anansi dives into the water and meets Thunder. He gave him a magic pot that had plenty of food in it. Being selfish, Anansi hid the pot from his family. They later found it and destroyed it.

"Why the lizard moves his head up and down": Anansi sets out to obtain the names of the the king's three daughters so he can marry them. After finding the names he tells the lizard the sound them so the king may hear. The king then gave the lizard the daughters. Anansi becomes angry and frames the lizard of a crime. The king then takes the wives away from the lizard and gives them to Anansi.

"The squirrel and the spider": The spider stole the squirrels land to later have the profits from the land stolen from him by the crow.

Palm trees of Africa