The Babbling City
A twist on the tower of Babel and the introduction of different languages based on the story from the Old Testament.
The BIG Lie
A story retold in the first person point of view about a lie a girl creates to explain the lost eggs her grandmother gives her.
Watch Over
This is a story about a bird attempting to save a man's life but failing to do so resulting in the man's death.
Snake Bite
The retelling of how the snake became mean and was given his fangs.
The Illusion
A modern version about how a man was tricked and gave away a large amount of money.
Hard Lessons
A man's hard learned lesson about life.
Showing posts with label Portfolio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Portfolio. Show all posts
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Storytelling Week 14: Hard Lessons
Once upon a time there were two people that lived a long time ago. These two men just so happened to be brothers. One of the men was very wealthy and had more money than his younger brother who was quite poor but content with his life. The older man had all this money but was pretty unhappy because he had to work most of his days away. The younger brother only worked a half-day so that he had plenty of time to spend with his family and enjoy his youth.
One day the younger brother sat down with the older brother for lunch and they discussed their lives and how each of them was doing. The older brother was telling the younger about all of the money he had acquired throughout life along with all of the things he owned. Even though the older brother had all these things the younger brother could tell he was unhappy. The younger brother questioned his happiness, which made the older brother extremely angry. He told his brother to go away because he knew nothing of money and was in no position to give him advice.
The younger brother took these words hard and left to live in another country. He lived there for many years and raised a happy family. He still didn't have much money but yet made enough to keep his family happy and give them what they needed to grow up strong. When the younger brother became old he had heard his brother had become very ill and he wished to say goodbye to his brother. This trip took him many weeks because there were no faster ways of traveling back then. The only way to travel was to walk with a donkey carrying your food and water.
When the younger brother arrived home he was met by a group of people that led him to his older brother's deathbed. He lay there and listened to his brother tell him how he became so successful and had all this money. Later he admitted that he should have listened to the younger brother and worked less so that he could enjoy his youth and be with his family. The older brother felt sorry for the harsh words he had said to his younger brother and decided to give him all of his wealth as long as he promised to take care of his family.
This story was a good lesson to be learned and from then on it was told to every generation of the family to remind them to never work so much that all of that money and time would be wasted with no memories of having a family that survived to old age.
One day the younger brother sat down with the older brother for lunch and they discussed their lives and how each of them was doing. The older brother was telling the younger about all of the money he had acquired throughout life along with all of the things he owned. Even though the older brother had all these things the younger brother could tell he was unhappy. The younger brother questioned his happiness, which made the older brother extremely angry. He told his brother to go away because he knew nothing of money and was in no position to give him advice.
The younger brother took these words hard and left to live in another country. He lived there for many years and raised a happy family. He still didn't have much money but yet made enough to keep his family happy and give them what they needed to grow up strong. When the younger brother became old he had heard his brother had become very ill and he wished to say goodbye to his brother. This trip took him many weeks because there were no faster ways of traveling back then. The only way to travel was to walk with a donkey carrying your food and water.
When the younger brother arrived home he was met by a group of people that led him to his older brother's deathbed. He lay there and listened to his brother tell him how he became so successful and had all this money. Later he admitted that he should have listened to the younger brother and worked less so that he could enjoy his youth and be with his family. The older brother felt sorry for the harsh words he had said to his younger brother and decided to give him all of his wealth as long as he promised to take care of his family.
This story was a good lesson to be learned and from then on it was told to every generation of the family to remind them to never work so much that all of that money and time would be wasted with no memories of having a family that survived to old age.
Author's Note
This story was based off the story "The Fox and the Cat." The original story is about a fox bragging about how he had so many tricks to escape dogs to a cat that said he only had and needed one. The cat asked to fox to show him tricks to escape the dog. When the fox tried to show the cat the bag of tricks held down the fox so the dogs attacked him while the cat jumped into the tree to escape the dogs. The stories are similar, both had a characters who were killed because they had too much of something that weighed them down in life while the other had just enough to let them survive. The picture I chose is from the original story where the cat jumps in the tree while the fox gets attacked. I thought this picture would give the reader a good idea of what the original story was about. I chose to write the story with people as the main characters to give a more personal feel to the reader to learn a lesson on not what to do.
Bibliography
"The Fox and the Cat" by the Grimm Brothers, from Grimm Brothers (Ashliman) (1998-2013) Web Source: UNtextbook
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Storytelling for Week 5: The BIG Lie
Hi, my name is Linda. I live just outside a small village named Hich a Hich with my aunt. Most of the time we get along fairly well and have a good time with one another. There was one day that I was chasing squirrels through the forest outside of my house. I was looking up at the squirrel jumping through the trees and did not see the log that was crossing my path. Before I knew it I had fallen and I could feel a burning pain in my leg where I had scraped my shin. I went to my aunt for some ointment for my scrape when she proceeded to tell me she had none but handed me two eggs to take to the drug seller to trade for some ointment.
Once I was on my way to the drug seller I was looking all around and out of nowhere a squirrel jumped in front of me as if he were taunting me. I just had to chase him and when I did I fell into a hole in the ground because I wasn't looking where I was running. I had to come up with a story fast. There is no way I could tell my aunt that I had broken the eggs she had given me the same way I had injured myself in the first place. As I walked further toward the town I came up with countless stories that I could tell her. After all the stories were made up I decided to combine them all for the best story of all time.
Once I had arrived back at my aunt's house I told her my ingenious story that I created. I told her that I had misplaced the eggs when I got to the town and looked around hard until I found them fully grown into a chicken inside a woman's house. I told the woman to give my chicken back and to pay her for the work the chicken had done for her. We agreed that I would receive a substantial amount of rice in pay for the chicken's work. I strapped the rice to the chicken's back and we left from the village.
On the way back we stopped because the chicken's back was aching. Some men told me to place a burnt walnut shell on the back of the chicken and it would heal her. The next day when we woke up there was a fully grown walnut tree growing out of his back. The earth around the tree was good so I planted watermelons and muskmelons for growing. I cut a watermelon open and lost my knife. The melon was so big that I found an entire town inside of it and hidden deep within the town was my knife.
After telling my aunt of this great story she began to laugh so hard that she fell down. Once she stopped laughing she told me I wasn't to be trusted to go to town with eggs alone again.
Once I was on my way to the drug seller I was looking all around and out of nowhere a squirrel jumped in front of me as if he were taunting me. I just had to chase him and when I did I fell into a hole in the ground because I wasn't looking where I was running. I had to come up with a story fast. There is no way I could tell my aunt that I had broken the eggs she had given me the same way I had injured myself in the first place. As I walked further toward the town I came up with countless stories that I could tell her. After all the stories were made up I decided to combine them all for the best story of all time.
Once I had arrived back at my aunt's house I told her my ingenious story that I created. I told her that I had misplaced the eggs when I got to the town and looked around hard until I found them fully grown into a chicken inside a woman's house. I told the woman to give my chicken back and to pay her for the work the chicken had done for her. We agreed that I would receive a substantial amount of rice in pay for the chicken's work. I strapped the rice to the chicken's back and we left from the village.
On the way back we stopped because the chicken's back was aching. Some men told me to place a burnt walnut shell on the back of the chicken and it would heal her. The next day when we woke up there was a fully grown walnut tree growing out of his back. The earth around the tree was good so I planted watermelons and muskmelons for growing. I cut a watermelon open and lost my knife. The melon was so big that I found an entire town inside of it and hidden deep within the town was my knife.
After telling my aunt of this great story she began to laugh so hard that she fell down. Once she stopped laughing she told me I wasn't to be trusted to go to town with eggs alone again.
Author's Note
This story is based off of the story "The City of Nothing-in-the-World." The original story is told in the third person narrative style of an all-knowing narrator. The story is the same with a few aspects of it shortened. Some of the details that were toward the end of the story made the lie seem to drag on and on with no end. The girl hurts her leg and asks the grandmother for ointment. The grandmother gives the child two eggs to take to the drug seller for ointment. After returning from the trip is when the child tells her aunt about all of the wild things that happened on her trip. I decided to tell the story in this style to give a more personalized feel for the child and what really happened along with why she lied. I also added the aunt's reactions to her story. The original story didn't have any detail about why the girl chose to lie and make up the story so I added in my own reasoning for the lie. I chose the image of the chicken because it was honestly the only thing that I could find that I liked. Also the chicken is the cause of the whole made-up story.
Bibliography
"The City of Nothing-in-the-World" translated by D.L.R. Lorimer and E.O. Lorimer from Persian Tales (1919). Web Source: UNtextbook
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Storytelling for Week 2: The Babbling City
A long time ago in a land much different from today there lived two brothers of very old age but still in good health. The oldest brother's name was Bill and the second brother's name was Joe. Bill was seen as the more mature older brother that everyone looked up to. Joe was the younger brother that did anything Bill said to do but was still looked highly upon by the community. These two men lived in a great palace of a house on the highest hill that overlooked the city. This community was filled with curious citizens that questioned many things that God did when creating the Earth. They met in many town meetings to discuss these things that they wanted answers to and went to God periodically to question the thoughts behind the creation.
One day Bill went to Joe and asked him the most curious question. Bill asked "what do you think is beyond the clouds?" Joe answered back "I don't know, brother. I've never put much thought into it but now that you ask I am quite curious as well." Bill responded, " Do you think that the great heavens of our god lie beyond the clouds"? After spending much time conversing over the subject the two men decided to get opinions from the townsmen. The men went amongst the remaining townsmen and questioned them as to what is behind the clouds and if they would be willing to build a tower to explore. After all of this interrogating the two brothers went to the town meeting that was being held and asked if the townspeople would help them build a tower on top of their house to explore the further reaches of the sky beyond the clouds. A strong majority of the people agreed to the task and began collecting material to build the tower with. To build the tower the people used brick that was burned to harden it and slime was used as a mortar to weld the bricks together.
After a few months the tower was built nearly a mile high. God then came down to check on his people and saw the partially built tower and decided that there was no way they would see his home without his admittance through the front gates. On one of the best days of construction Bill and Joe stepped back to view the tower being built and decided it was a beautiful creation. As the two were talking, God was sitting on top of the tower and threw tiny rocks off the top but only hard enough to get his point across. The rocks struck both of the men, as they were working, on top of the head and they began talking a strange language to one another. One by one God threw rocks at each worker until he had hit each and every worker. Now there were hundreds of languages being spoken and no one spoke the same language. Construction of the tower came to a halt and everyone was very confused and decided to move to various places around the world and begin their own countries.
One day Bill went to Joe and asked him the most curious question. Bill asked "what do you think is beyond the clouds?" Joe answered back "I don't know, brother. I've never put much thought into it but now that you ask I am quite curious as well." Bill responded, " Do you think that the great heavens of our god lie beyond the clouds"? After spending much time conversing over the subject the two men decided to get opinions from the townsmen. The men went amongst the remaining townsmen and questioned them as to what is behind the clouds and if they would be willing to build a tower to explore. After all of this interrogating the two brothers went to the town meeting that was being held and asked if the townspeople would help them build a tower on top of their house to explore the further reaches of the sky beyond the clouds. A strong majority of the people agreed to the task and began collecting material to build the tower with. To build the tower the people used brick that was burned to harden it and slime was used as a mortar to weld the bricks together.
After a few months the tower was built nearly a mile high. God then came down to check on his people and saw the partially built tower and decided that there was no way they would see his home without his admittance through the front gates. On one of the best days of construction Bill and Joe stepped back to view the tower being built and decided it was a beautiful creation. As the two were talking, God was sitting on top of the tower and threw tiny rocks off the top but only hard enough to get his point across. The rocks struck both of the men, as they were working, on top of the head and they began talking a strange language to one another. One by one God threw rocks at each worker until he had hit each and every worker. Now there were hundreds of languages being spoken and no one spoke the same language. Construction of the tower came to a halt and everyone was very confused and decided to move to various places around the world and begin their own countries.
Author's Note
I chose this story because I thought I could tell a new story from a completely different vantage point to create an interesting post. My goal was to create a new reasoning for why there are different languages in the world and why they are scattered throughout the world. Also my goal is to add more personalization to the story by adding in characters with attributes closer to today's type of people and how they would talk and act. The reading this story came from was "The Tower of Babel." In the original story, God confused the people of Babylon so that they would not be capable of working together to make the great tower to reach the heavens. In creating this story, I thought it would be better to create some type of reasoning for why everyone could not speak the same and also why they ventured off into different parts of the country. Most people know that origin of the original story but do not question its accuracy. Many of these stories were passed along by word of mouth and had variations in their accuracy. Knowing that this story is most likely completely inaccurate I felt like it would be a fun variation the original to explain some happenings early in our history.
Bibliography
The King James Bible, Book of Genesis 10-11
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