Wikipedia Trails: From Lugh to Draughts

Lugh: Lugh is an Irish god of many things, commonly equated to Mercury. He is the son of Cian and Ethniu, and a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann. He is best known for killing his grandfather, the tyrant Balor. He invented a number of things, including the board game fidchell.

Fidchell: Fidchell, also called gwyddbwyll, is an ancient Celtic board game. Played on a 7 by 7 grid, it was said to sometimes have supernatural powers over real events. Little evidence remains for how it was played, though it is theorized to have been a battle between two players, one of whom was trying to get their king piece to the outside of the board. The word fidchell morphed over time into ficheall, which is the Modern Irish word for chess.

Ludus latrunculorum: This is a game that is theorized to be similar to fidchell. Even less is known about how this game was played- five different, playable rule reconstructions exist, which range from being similar to checkers to being more chess-like. These reconstructions don't even agree on what the dimensions of the board or number of pieces should be.

Draughts/Checkers: Checkers, called Draughts in British English, is a game of strategy in which two players try to capture each other's pieces on an 8 by 8 or 10 by 10 board. I had previously thought that checkers was just a simple game, but from this article, I learned that there is in fact strategy involved, and there is a World Championship for the game. 

One theorized way to play Ludus latrunculorum. (Source)

Tech tip: Google Reverse Image Search

I used Reverse Image Search to find this image:

Rama and Sita from the Ramayana. (Source)

I found out that it's from the Indian Ramayana. I found this larger image from the Victoria and Albert Museum. 

Tech Tip: Word Counter for Chrome

I installed Word Counter for Chrome. I really like it! It's much faster than navigating to a word counter website, and then having to copy and paste my text multiple times to check my word count.
For me, it really depends on the topic I'm writing about whether I have trouble reaching the minimum word count or not. For my story writing assignments, I usually have no trouble writing enough, and I sometimes even go over the maximum length, but for comments, I almost always have to find some way to bulk up my word count. I can usually eyeball length within about a hundred words- so for stories, I don't usually check with a word counter, but for comments, I have to, because 40 words and 60 words can look so similar in length.

Week 5 Story: The Three Sheltered Ones

Long ago, I lived in a strange, clear box. There were other people in there with me, and we had many of the giant two-legged ones as servants. I lived in fear of King Mittens, our cruel leader. He lived at the top of the carpet tower, watching us always, as we went about our days and nights. He laid claim to all of our rattle mice, all of our fuzzy puff balls, and every toilet box, and he was always the first to greet our visitors, an ever-changing assortment of the two-legged ones who would come through and, on occasion, rescue one of our people from King Mittens’ tyranny.

One day, a new two-legged one came to the great box. It had gentle forepaws as it played with us. King Mittens tried to take its attention, but it also showed favor toward Silky, my countryman with the long fur, and to me. But the time came for it to leave, and it couldn’t decide which of us to take. It left alone, as it came.

Immediately, we began to squabble.

“Oh, great two legged one! Come back for me!” Our king wailed. He snatched something up from the floor and shook his paw in our faces. “See, for I have the two leg’s fur adornment! I am the chosen one!” He held a small circular object, which he took to the glorious water-giver and rinsed before bringing it back to his throne.

Silky grumbled in irritation. “Our king has become delusional. I will bring the two leg back to us.” She retreated to the corner of the great box, plotting.

I yowled in despair and settled down by the yawning portal, now closed, that the two legs came and went through. One day, I was sure, this two-leg would return, and I vowed not to move from my place until it did.

Many days passed. King Mittens cared for the fur adornment daily, rinsing it in the blessed waters at all hours. I hadn’t moved form my post, not even to eat- I relied on the two leg servants to bring food to me. And thus we stayed stagnant in our habits.

Silky, on the other hand, had been watching and plotting, and one day, she unleased her plan. She noticed that the loud ones on the other side of the portal would often be taken to another great box when they were injured, and, soon after they disappeared back through the portal, we would watch them walk out the great clear portal with a new two legged one. She used this information to do the same- she walked around favoring one of her paws until one of the servants took her to the other box. I watched, curious, as the two legs in that box fussed over her, flashing lights at her and looking at her foot. She returned to us with a bandaged paw the next day, triumphant.

“The two leg will return within a few days, I am sure.” She said as she passed my post. I doubted her, but despite this, I felt almost hopeful.

Indeed, the next day, the two leg came back. It had shorter head-fur now, and I almost didn’t recognize it- two legs look so similar, after all- but as soon as I did, I bounded up to it, rubbing its legs and crying out. “Take me, oh great one! Take me!”

It glanced toward Silky, who was climbing up the carpet tree- attempting a coup, perhaps?- and King Mittens, who slept, unaware, on his throne, before turning back to me. It bent down and said something in the gibberish language of the two legs.

“Are you taking me?” I asked.

“Tax benefits waffles.” It spoke our language as badly as most two legs as it lifted me up into its arms. I purred in happiness as it carried me through the yawning portal. I was rescued.

“Boring!” the goblin said as I finished my story. “You lie, our great two leg would never bring home a commoner.”

I glared at the goblin. “Oh, and you’re so special because our great two leg got you from another great two leg? Please.” I bopped him on the nose and clambered up the carpet tree. My carpet tree, greater than King Mittens could ever dream.

Our protagonist, waiting by the door (Source)

Author’s Note:

I based this story of “The Three Lovers” (Source), one of the stories from 22 Goblins. In the original story, the three suitors of a young woman mourn her death differently. Eventually, one brings her back to life with magic- which I recreated with Silky’s ploy to pretend to be injured (the implication being that a picture of her was posted on social media for the cat shelter while she was with the vet)- but the woman ends up marrying the man who slept in the cemetery by her ashes every night.

I made the three suitors into cats living in a shelter, and the young woman is represented by the human who eventually adopts our main cat. Mittens represents the man in the original story who washes the woman’s bones in the holy river (symbolized with him washing the human’s hair tie in the water dish), while Silky is the magician and the POV cat is the man who sleeps in the cemetery, as she sleeps in the last place that the human was seen.

I tried to talk about things the way a cat would- “portal” instead of “door”, “two legs” instead of “humans”, and “loud ones” instead of “dogs”, to name a few examples- while also using some words that make it somewhat obvious that the characters are cats- like “paw”, “fur”, “yowling” and “purring”, all words that are used mostly to refer to animals, and cats specifically.

The goblin at the end of the story is a callback to the source of the original story, although in this case, the goblin is the story-listener rather than the story-teller. In my mind, the goblin is a fancy hairless cat, purchased from a breeder- hence its elitist attitude to the so-called “commoner” cat from the shelter. The human’s speech of “tax benefits” is from a popular internet meme, about how cats probably hear humans’ meowing as jumbled cat words, the example given being “tax benefits”.

Reading notes: 22 goblins

All stories from Twenty-Two Goblins, translated by Arthur W. Ryder, with illustrations by Perham W. Nahl (1917).

The king carrying the goblin (source)

Introduction 

Every day, a monk brought the king a piece of fruit, which he in turn gives to his treasurer. After 12 years, the king gives one of his daily fruits to a monkey. The monkey splits the fruit open and a gemstone falls out. The king, amazed, asks the treasurer what he did with the other fruits. The treasurer goes and checks under the window that he had been throwing the fruits out of, and reports back that he saw a pile of priceless stones.

The next day, the king asks the monk why he keeps giving him expensive gemstones. The monk asks the king for help in a matter, and tells the king to meet him under a fig tree in the cemetery. The king meets him at the agreed upon place, and the monk tells him to go retrieve a dead body from a tree. He find the body, and cuts it loose from the rope it hangs from. The body laughs; the king recognizes that there is a goblin living in it, and, as he carries the body back toward the monk, the goblin tells him a story:

The Three Lovers 

A Brahman lived on the bank of a river with his daughter. Three young men ask to marry her. She doesn’t want to hurt the feelings of any of them, so she puts off making a choice. She waits so long that she dies, and the three young men take her to the cemetery and have a funeral. One builds a hut and sleeps on her ashes; the second takes her bones to the sacred river; and the third becomes a travelling monk.

The monk goes to a man’s house. As they are eating dinner, the man’s infant son makes a scene, and his mother throws him into the fire. The monk declares that he is in the house of the devil, but the man does a spell and the boy stands back up, alive and well. When the man and his family are sleeping, the monk steals his spellbook, with the goal of bringing the young woman back to life.

The monk goes back to the cemetery and gathers the other young men. The perform the spell, and the young woman comes back to life, even more beautiful than before. All three claim that she belings to him and him alone- the first because he kept her ashes safe, the second because he put her bones in the holy river, and the third because he did the spell.

The goblin asks the king who should get to marry the young woman. The king says that the third young man did what a father should, and the second did what a son should do, but the first, who slept with the ashes, did what a lover should do, and therefore he should marry her. The goblin, satisfied, disappears back to the tree. The king goes back, cuts him down again, and starts the walk again, and the goblin tells him another story:

The Brave Man, the Wise Man, and the Clever Man 

The daughter of a king’s adviser says she will marry a brave, wise, or clever man. Her father gets sent to a far away land, and a young man, having heard of his daughter’s declaration, approaches him about marrying her. He says he is a clever man, and proves it by building a magic chariot, and the father agrees to the marriage.

Another young man approaches the girl’s brother, claiming to be a brave man. He proves his skill with weapons, and the brother agrees to let him marry his sister.

A third young man approaches the girl’s mother, claiming to be a wise man. He tells her truths of the past and future, and she agrees to allow him to marry her daughter.

The father and brother arrive home, and they discover that the daughter has three marriages planned on the same day. When the grooms arrive, they discover that the girl has been kidnapped by a giant (according to the wise man). The clever man builds another chariot, and the three men bring the father with them to find the giant. The brave man kills the giant, and they rescue the daughter. The three young men start arguing about who deserves to marry her, each claiming that she would be lost without their skills.

The goblin again asks the king who the girl should marry. The king says she should marry the brave man, because he risked his life, and the other two were just his helpers. The goblin, once again satisfied, escapes back to the tree again. The king gets the goblin again, and the goblin tells a third story:

The Woman, her Husband, and her Brother 

A man meets a beautiful woman and falls in love. His father promises that they will be able to wed, and the woman’s father agreed. After they were wed, her brother comes to visit, and invites the couple to a party. They walk to the party, and find a temple on the way. The man decides to sacrifice himself to the goddess of the temple; his brother-in-law is driven mad with grief and cuts off his own head. The woman find them dead, and is about to kill herself when the goddess tells her not to die, but that she should place the heads back on the bodies and bring them back to life. She does so, but accidentally mixes up the heads, not realizing until after they come back to life.

The goblin asks the king which man is now the husband and which man is now the brother. The king replies that the man with the husband’s head and the brother’s body is the husband, because heads are how you recognize people. The goblin is again satisfied, and yet again disappears back to the tree. The king starts getting fed up, and goes back once again. The goblin starts another story:

Food, Women, Cotton

A man sends his three adult sons to find a sacrificial turtle. The eldest son refuses to carry the turtle, saying it is slimy and trying to shame his younger brothers into carrying it. The brothers start arguing about who is a more important specialist. The eldest says he is a specialist in food; the middle, a specialist in women. They try to get the youngest to carry the turtle, but he refutes it by saying he is a specialist in cotton.

They go to a king to settle the quarrel. The king gives them a lavish meal, which the eldest brother refuses to eat because he smells a corpse in it. The rice was grown near a crematory.

The king then sends a woman to the second brother’s room. He rejects her, saying she smells goaty. She was, in fact, raised on goat milk.

The king gives the third brother a lovely couch to sleep on. He wakes up in the middle of the night and says something is under the quilts. The attendants find a single hair under one of the many quilts.

The king gives each man 100,000 gold pieces, and they stay at the palace, forgetting about the turtle and the sacrifice.

The goblin asks the king which man was the most clever. The king says that the third brother is the most clever, as the other brothers could have asked around for their knowledge. And once again, the goblin goes back to the tree. The king retrieves him again, and he tells another story:

The Four Scientific Suitors 

A king prays that he and his wife might have children. He is told that he will have a brave son and a beautiful daughter. When the children have bene born and are adults, the kings sends for suitors for his daughter. Finding none satisfactory, he offers to call upon kings; the daughter instead requests that he find an attractive scientist for her to marry.

Four young men hear of the offer, and make their way to the palace. One is a suit maker, who makes five suits a day. One is a farmer, who knows the languages of all animals. One is a soldier, who is an expert swordsman. The final one is a necromancer. All are attractive, and the king and his daughter have difficulty choosing.

The goblin asks the king which man the girl should marry, and he chooses the soldier, because he is of the proper class and has manhood. The goblin disappears again, and the king goes back and gets him again. The goblin tells another story:

The Three Delicate Wives 

A king has three wives. The first passes out when he playfully tugs on her hair; the second gets a moonburn, and the third is bruised by noise.

The goblin asks which wife is the most delicate. The king says the one who is bruised by sound, as nothing touched her. The goblin returns to the tree.

Comment Wall

How to Steal Fire the Trickster Way

Story Lab: Tricksters and Those Two Guys

The first thing I looked up on TVTropes was Tricksters, as that's the topic of my project, and I wanted to read more about the character archetype. I really liked the description of Trickster characters used in the article; they're usually cunning or foolish (or both, as in the case of Wile E. Coyote), but they're rarely malicious, merely characters working in their own self-interest. Something that I noticed while reading this page (specifically the "Myths and Religion" tab) is that multiple tricksters often appear in the same mythology, often with one being far better liked than the others; examples include Loki and Odin in Norse Mythology, Hermes and his various descendants in Greek Myths, and the not one, not two, but three different races/species of tricksters in Japanese Mythology. Some characters that I didn't expect to be classified as tricksters were Bart Simpson and Figaro from the operas The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville.

From the Tricksters page, I followed some links and ended up at the Those Two Guys page. I feel like this trope could be worked into the frame story of my project. The basic idea is that two characters who exist almost as one characterized being act as comic relief and a sounding board for the more important characters. I could picture a pair of Those Two Guys sitting with the tricksters as they tell their stories and providing useless commentary- it would add to the already humorous idea of tricksters bragging to each other about tricks they've pulled.

At this point, I had already spent close to an hour reading TVTropes, and I couldn't let it suck up anymore of my time. But I think the ideas I read about will really help me with my project.

How much time I spent on TVTropes without even noticing. Source

Reading Notes: Ovid's Metamorphoses

All stories from Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Tony Kline (2000)

Deucalion and Pyrrha

Jupiter, Neptune, and the rivers work together to create a flood. Some people and animals survive the initial flood, but die of starvation. 

Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha land their rowboat on the top of Mount Parnassus. Jupiter sees them, the lone survivors, and orders the waters to retreat.

Deucalion and Pyrrha are distressed at being the last people on earth, and they pray to the gods to change it. The goddess orders them to throw rocks behind them. The rocks turn into people. 

Io

Jupiter is his usual terrible self, rapes Io.

Juno sees that Jupiter is gone and goes down to Earth to catch him in the act. Jupiter turns Io into a cow, and when Juno arrives, she asks him where the cow is from. Jupiter, always a quick-thinker, says she came from the earth. Juno takes the cow as a gift, and Jupiter allows it, so as not to cause suspicion. Juno leaves the cow under the guard of Argus, the many-eyed man. When Io sees her reflection in the river, she screams a cow scream and runs away.

Io finds her father, Inachus, and follows him around. He takes a liking to the cow, and she writes her tale on the ground. Inachus only seems worried that he will never have grandchildren, only grand-calves. While Inachus is distracted, Argus shows up and takes Io again. 

Jupiter orders Mercury to assassinate Argus. Mercury disguises himself as a shepherd, complete with stolen sheep. Argus hears Mercury playing his reed pipe, and invites him to sit down. Mercury tries to put Argus to sleep with his magic pipes, but Argus only sleeps a few eyes at a time. Finally, he falls asleep, and Mercury beheads him. Juno puts all of Argus's eyes on the tail feathers of a peacock, her sacred bird, and sends a Fury to terrify Io. Io runs away.

Jupiter hears Io pleading for him to change her back into a human, and, after he calms Juno down, he does. 

Phaethon and the Sun and Phaethon's Ride and The Death of Phaethon

After Io's cow ordeal, she gives birth to a son by Jupiter, Epaphus. Ephaphus has a friend, Phaethon, who insists that he is the son of Apollo. Ephaphus doesn't believe it, so Phaethon asks his mother for proof. She tells him to go ask Apollo himself, at sunrise.

He makes his way to Apollo's palace, where he barges into the throne room, where Apollo is sitting with other, minor gods. He demands that Apollo acknowledge him as his son, and Apollo says he'll do a favor for Phaethon as proof of his parentage. Phaethon asks to drive the sun across the sky for a day. Apollo, terrified of what could happen, tries to dissuade him, but Phaethon is insistent. 

Apollo gives Phaethon sunscreen and tells him to hold the reins tightly, and that the horses know the way, and that he just has to follow the chariot tracks from Apollo's earlier rides. The gates open, and the horses shoot out. Phaethon doesn't hold the reins tight enough, and the horses go crazy. They leave the track and heat the constellations up. Phaethon looks down and discovers he is afraid of heights, and then looks up to see the constellation Scorpio looking ready to sting. He drops the reins entirely, and the horses weave wildly up and down, setting the Earth on fire. The Earth cries for help.

Jupiter hears the Earth, and sets out to destroy the fire. He shoots Phaethon with a lightning bolt, killing him. He lands next to a river and is buried by nymphs. Phaethon's mother is consumed with grief; his sisters are turned into poplar trees; and his best friend (lover?) Cycnus turned into a swan. Apollo decides to never ride the sun across the sky again, and the other gods try to talk him out of it. 

Callisto

Callisto is one of Diana's Hunters and a favorite of Trivia. Jupiter disguises himself as Diana and rapes her, because he's Jupiter and that's his whole thing. 

Nine months later, Callisto and Diana (the real one this time) are bathing in a sacred stream; Diana sees that Callisto is pregnant, and makes her leave.

After she gives birth to a baby boy, Juno decides to turn Callisto into a bear. (Sidenote- why does Juno always blame the women that Jupiter assaults? It's literally always 100% his fault) 

Years later, Callisto's son, Arcas, is out hunting. He runs into his mother, and is about to kill her when Jupiter turns both of them into constellations, the Big Bear and the Little Bear. 

Smele

Jupiter impregnated Smele, and Juno, rather than harassing him about it, she attacks her. She disguises herself as an old woman, and talks Smele into asking Jupiter to show her his true form, to prove that he is indeed who he claims to be. 

Smele asks Jupiter for a gift, and Jupiter says he'll give her anything she wishes for (Sidenote- why do the gods always do that. It never ends well. Like, ever.). She asks him to show her his true form, and he does, though he tries to show a weaker version of his godly form. Smele is still burned to a crisp, but her fetus, the unborn god Bacchus, survives, and is sewn onto Jupiter's thigh to complete his gestation. 

Jupiter and Semele by Gustave Moreau (source)

Topic Research: Trickster gods

One of the topic ideas I came up with is trickster gods from various cultures interacting. For this topic, I would tell the stories of three different trickster gods taming fire, as this is a common theme with trickster gods throughout the world. I would tell the stories of Hermes (source), Maui (source), and Crow (source) stealing or creating fire. I would put my own twist on the stories by having the tricksters tell the stories themselves, in first person; as most myths are told in the third person, I think this will lend a different perspective to the story, as we will be able to see the characters' motivations.
In Hermes' fire myth, he creates fire himself. Maui wasn't the original discoverer of fire; rather, he destroyed all the fires in the world, and then set off to get more, all because he wanted to find out where the fire came from in the first place. Crow stole fire from the women of the stars and brought it back to Earth, where it was in turn stolen from him. Despite the similar themes in the three stories, they are all distinct tales, and they show the wide breadth of personalities and traits that trickster gods encompass.

A ring of fire. (Source) 

Week 3 Story: The Quarrel of two History majors

Original Story from Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends by Gertrude Landa (1919)

In a small, dank room in basement of Dale Hall, two freshmen met. One introduced himself to the other.
"Hi! I'm Doug! I'm in Kappa Shoe!" He stuck his hand out.
The girl sitting next to him replied, "I'm Kat. I'm a History major." She gave him a fist bump.
Doug frowned, confused for a moment, but quickly recovered. "Nice to meet you Kat! Do you want to be friends? You seem smart." Doug kept talking, and Kat nodded along. They made an agreement to be study buddies, and Kat helped Doug with the parts of the class that he didn't quite grasp. They both ended up with good grades; they were a good team.

After the last class of the semester, Kat asked Doug if they could talk outside of the classroom. Doug agreed.
"Look, Doug, you've been a great study buddy, but I don't think I'll be able to help you in your classes next term." Kat waited while Doug thought through what she had said.
"Can we still be friends?" He asked. Kat shook her head.
"I don't think that's the best idea, Doug. You're very nice, but we won't be in any classes together, and I just don't have time for friends outside of class. You understand, right?"
Doug nodded slowly, "Yeah, sure. I'll see you around campus?"
"Maybe," Kat replied before turning around and walking away. Doug watched her leave sadly. His best friend, gone forever.

In the next few terms, Doug tried a lot of different majors. First, he tried engineering, but he couldn't keep up with the course load. Then, he tried business, but the other business majors didn't like him, and he felt alone. Meanwhile, Kat continued through her History major, always doing well. After he had gone through what felt like every major the university offered, Doug found his way to the History department as well. When he walked into his first history class, he saw Kat sitting in the front row.
"Kat! Hey dude, how have you been!" He walked up to her and held out a hand for a high five.
Kat looked up at him disinterestedly. "Doug, I thought we agreed to not hang out anymore. Remember?"
Doug's face fell. "But we're in class together again! We can be friends again!"
"How about no." Kat turned back to her notes.
Doug and Kat both finished their history majors. Doug spent the rest of their time at the university trying to convince Kat to be his friend again, but Kat never relented.

A cat reading a book. Source

Author's Note:
I adapted the story "The Quarrel of the Cat and Dog", a Jewish Fairy Tale. In the original story, a cat and dog who were best friends decide to part ways. The cat goes to live in the house of Adam (of Adam and Eve fame), while the dog tries to make his way in life in many different places before finally settling in the house of Adam as well, which the cat perceives as a major transgression, and she refuses to talk to the dog again. In my retelling, I made the characters into college students- the dog is represented by Doug the frat boy (Kappa Shoe is not a real frat, to my knowledge), who, like the common characterization of a dog, is happy, friendly, and very persistent, though not necessarily the brightest, while the cat is represented by Kat, who I tried to portray as somewhat aloof and generally irritable and contrary, as when she gives Doug a fist bump when he is clearly motioning for a handshake. Adam's house is represented in this story as the History department. The main plot is mostly the same as the original story; the changes I made were mostly superficial.

Reading: Jewish Fairy Tales Part A

Jewish Fairy Tales

All stories from Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends by Gertrude Landa (1919).

The Giant of the Flood

Noah herds animals onto the ark. He tells them that, if they cannot lie down, they cannot board the ark. 

He wants a unicorn. A giant offers to find one in exchange for passage. Noah says the giant is a demon. 

The giant finds a unicorn. It is large, but it can lie down on the ground, so Noah ties it to the ark by its horn so it can swim alongside. 

When the flood starts, the giant waits until the water is high, and then jumps on the unicorn's back. He says he will eat all the food Noah tries to give the unicorn. 

Noah makes a deal with the giant that he will feed him, and in return he will serve Noah's descendants. 

The animals have a troubling journey. The phoenix doesn't bother Noah for food, and Noah proclaims that the phoenix will live forever. 

The giant tells Noah that he will never again have to put up with humans. Noah reminds him that he will be a servant to the humans, and the giant becomes depressed. He stops eating, and starts shrinking. 

The ark lands on an island. Noah commands the giant to do hard labor, and he gets even smaller. 

Noah takes the giant out to plant things. They plant grapes, which Noah says can be turned into wine, and the giant sacrifices a sheep, a lion, a pig, and a monkey in honor of it, saying that drinking a little will make a person harmless like a sheep, drinking a bit more will make him strong like a lion, more still will make him a piggish beast, and too much will make him a silly monkey. 

Later, the giant loses a tooth and Abraham carves it into a chair.

The giant then threatens the Israelites by picking up a mountain to crush them with. The mountain fell apart, landing around his neck and trapping him. Moses stabs him in the ankle with a sword and kills him. 

Noah's Ark, sans unicorn. Source

The Beggar King

King Hagag removes parts from the Holy Book that he dislikes. 

He goes hunting. The deer he hunts is faster than his horse, but gets caught by its antlers on a tree by a river. He undresses and swims across the river to get the deer, but he finds that the deer has turned into a young genie, who says he's there to teach the king a lesson. The genie swims back to the king's horse and dresses in the king's clothes, tricking the other hunters that he is the king. 

The king cries in the forest until a woodcutter finds him. He tells the woodcutter he is the king, but the woodcutter doesn't believe him, and offers him clothes if the king will carry his sticks. 

The king bothers the woodcutter, so the woodcutter shoos him away. He finds his way to the palace, and the guards also shoo him away. He sleeps on the street, and the next morning, he sees the genie riding through the city, to the delight of the populace. 

The king tries to get a job as a laborer, but he is incompetent, and he eventually becomes the guide for a group of blind beggars. 

The genie announces that all beggars who come to the palace will get a feast. The king and his group of beggars go. The "King" talks to each beggar separately. The king shows remorse for his actions, and the genie allows him to resume his place on the throne. The king protests, but the genie insists and promises to take care of the blind beggars. The king proves to be a kind and just ruler.

The Quarrel of the Cat and Dog

At first, the cat and dog were good friends. When winter fell, food grew scarce, and they both became irritable. 

The cat suggests that they start hunting separately, to be better able to find enough food. The dog is sad, but he agrees to make the cat happy. The cat decides to go live in Adam's house (of Adam and Eve), where she will eat mice. The cat tells the dog that they can never see each other again. Once again, the dog is sad, but the cat is not troubled. Adam is happy to allow the cat to eat the mice in his house.

The dog has a hard time hunting, and eventuallhy meets a wolf who gives him food, but also asks him to defend their cave from wild animals. The dog nearly dies, and he leaves the wolf.

He wanders again, and runs into a monkey, who tells him to go away and throws coconuts at him. 

Finally, the dog finds some sheep. who give him food in return for him keeping watch in the night for wolves. He acciendtally scares many of the sheep right into the group of wolves, and he decieds that he'll never talk to animals again. 

Eventually, he runs into Adam, who saves him from wild animals and insists that he stay in his house. The cat takes offense, and despite Adam's pleading, she constantly attacked the dog.

The Water-Babe

The Pharaoh's daughter finds baby Moses floating in the Nile. She takes him home and raises him. Everyone at the palace loves him, except for the Pharaoh's advisers, who disliked the Pharaoh befriending Moses. 

Moses's adoptive mother threw a banquet for his third birthday. Moses asked the Pharaoh what the party was for, and he stole the Pharaoh's crown. The royal advisor was insistent that Moses was an evil spirit who wants to steal the royal crown, but a different adviser sides with the Pharaoh's wife and daughter and says that Moses is just a normal child. The Pharaoh sides with the first adviser, and orders that Moses be tried. 

At the trial, the second adviser asks that the judges give Moses a choice between jewels and fire; if he chooses the jewels, he iay be a demon, but if he chooses the fire, he is a normal child. His mother is desperate for him to grab the fire, and the second adviser gives her his magic staff, supposedly handed down to him from Adam, which he says will make Moses do whatever she wants. Moses grabs the coals, and then, feeling the burn of the fire, sticks his still-hot hand in his mouth, burning his tongue. His mother asks for the magic staff, for protection, but the adviser says that only soeone who can read the magic word written on the staff can have it, and that one day, it will belong to Moses.

Years later, Moses flees Egypt. he ends up married to the daughter of the adviser, who had also left Egypt and become a Hebrew. The adviser leaves the stick outside, where Moses finds it and uses it to rescue the Hebrews who are enslaved in Egypt. 

From Shepherd Boy to King

A shepherd boy stands in a field. (lots of flowery description) One day, he hears a voice telling him he will be the King. He does not see a source of the voice. 

He climbs a tall hill with a large, bare tree (telephone pole?) on top. The hill is bare and quiet.

The tree turns out to be made of horn, not wood. The boy concludes that it is a magic hill. He cannot dig a hole in the hill; it seems to have a skin. He sits down to rest, and then the hill stands up. The boy figure out it is actually a giant unicorn (same as the Noah story? unclear). 

He decides to wait for the unicorn to lie back down so he can get off. He hears a lion roar in the distance, but the lion is tiny compared to the unicorn. The unicorn lowers its head, and the boy slides off, landing right next to the lion. He prepares to stab it, when a deer shows up and offers him a ride. The deer takes him back to his village. When he becomes king, he writes the story into a Psalm. 

The Magic Palace

Ibrahim, the most acclaimed man in the city, became poor. He didn't tell anyone, but his family was starving and wasting away. His wife tells him to get a job, and he says no one will hire him when he is wearing such ragged clothes. She talks to their neighbors, and borrows a cloak for him. He leaves the city, so that no one in town will know that he is poor and in need of work, and just outside the city, he is approached by a man seeking guidance. The man offers to let Ibrahim sell him as a slave, giving him a scroll of building blueprints as proof of his skills. Ibrahim is impressed, and compliments the designs. The man tells him to take him to a noble man in need of a new building, as they will listen to Ibrahim. Ibrahim agrees, and they go back to the city, eventually finding a jeweler who needs a new house. The jeweler agrees to the plans shown to him, and he buys the builder from Ibrahim. 

The jeweler tells the builder that he will be a free man if he builds the house, and tells him that he will find workmen. The builder replies that he doesn't need workmen, and that the house will be done tomorrow. The jweler takes him to the site, and decides to watch all night, but he eventually falls alseep. The jeweler and Ibrahim both have strange dreams of the buidling being constructed. 

In the morning, the jeweler and Ibrahim go to the newly built house, which is large and magnificent. The builder invites them in, and then disappears. 

Ibrahim says that the builder was the Prophet Elijah, who comes back to Earth to help worthy people who are in a bad place. The jeweler holds a banquet in the palace for all the residents of the city. 

Topic Brainstorm

One project topic that I'm interested in is Greek gods of the Underworld. There are a lot of gods and goddesses beyond Hades in the Greek underworld, and there are a lot of little-known myths about them that I really like reading about. I haven't yet found a good source for stories, but the Theoi page on Underworld gods and goddesses could be a good starting point. I imagine this storybook could be told with the frame story of demigods, children of the underworld gods and goddesses, telling each other stories about their godly parents.

Another possible project topic is trickster gods. Trickster gods are fun because, unlike many gods, who act pretty much the same in most myths (like Zeus, who is famous for his habit of turning into an animal, impregnating a human woman, and then dealing with the aftermath very badly), trickster gods are by their very nature unpredictable, and they act as both protagonists and antagonists in myths. I could retell stories about tricksters in many ways, but I'm thinking that a setup where the tricksters are talking to each other about their exploits could be fun- since many myths are told from a third-person point of view, it would be an interesting change to hear them from the point of view of one of the characters. A useful story could be Three Coyote Stories.

I'm also very interested in the Celtic pantheon of gods. I already know a superficial amount about Celtic myths from Dungeons and Dragons, but I'd love to learn more. Gods and Fighting Men: The Story of the Tuatha De Danaan and of the Fianna of Ireland by Lady Augusta Gregory would be a useful story. I don't know how I would retell the stories; I'd have to do a lot more reading before I decide on anything. 

My final project idea is a study of Celtic mythological creatures, like banshees and selkies. I know a fair amount about banshees and leprechauns, but I know most of the Celtic creatures only by name and a vague description, so it would be interesting to learn more about them. Folk Tales of Brittany by Elsie Masson might be a useful book. 

Hades, king of the Underworld. Source

Week 2 Story: Ainsley and Deryn

There was once a young nerd named Ainsley. Like many young nerds, she loved nothing more than playing Dungeons and Dragons, and like most Dungeons and Dragons players, she became very attached to the characters she created. One character in particular was her favorite, a wizard named Deryn. Ainsley spent more time creating Deryn than she had spent on any other character- she would write stories about her life, draw pictures of her, and she even made a Deryn costume to wear to Dungeons and Dragons sessions. Her friends all thought she was too obsessed with Deryn, but Ainsley just wanted her to be a real person.

As the months went on, Ainsley felt more and more like Deryn was the missing piece in her life. She started writing letters to Deryn, which she left in a basket over her fireplace, and she’d talk to Deryn as if she was in the room- when her friends expressed concern about her habit of talking to someone who not only wasn’t there, but wasn’t even real, Ainsley merely said that she knows Deryn isn’t real, and refused to discuss it further.

On Valentine’s Day, Ainsley’s Dungeons and Dragons group met for a party. They ate dinner and roasted marshmallows in the fireplace, and eventually their discussion got around to talking about their significant others. Everyone lamented how hard it was to convince their partners that they should go to a Dungeons and Dragons session on Valentine’s instead of going on a date- but when it was Ainsley’s turn to talk, she merely said that she was disappointed that Deryn couldn’t be there. That was the end of the line for one of her friends, and he got up, grabbed the letters off the mantle, and, despite Ainsley’s vehement protests, threw them into the fire. Ainsley, devastated, ordered everyone to leave, and she laid down next to the fireplace and cried over losing everything she had of Deryn. She cried and cried and cried, until she fell asleep.

Ainsley awoke to sunlight streaming through the windows. It was the next morning; the fire had died down, the letters turned completely to ash. And then she heard a voice behind her, a voice she had only imagined before.

“It’s about time you woke up. I’ve been waiting for hours.”

Ainsley turned slowly, hardly daring to hope that it could be true. Sitting on the couch was another young woman, black-clad and blue-haired, with a dagger strapped to her waist and a glowing staff lying on the coffee table.

“D-Deryn? Is it really you?”

Deryn laughed. “Of course it’s me, silly. You didn’t think I’d stay in those letters forever, did you? God, what a boring life. Come over here, have a seat. You’ve spent so long talking to me, I want to talk to you now.” Ainsley walked over to the couch and sat down next to Deryn.

And they lived happily ever after.

Burning letter. Source

Author’s note:

This week, I adapted the ancient story of Pygmalion to a more modern setting. Very few people sculpt these days, but a lot of people play Dungeons and Dragons, and, as a D&D player myself, I can attest to the fact that many people become far too attached to their characters. I also changed the main character from a man to a woman; we have so many stories about man-woman couples in mythology, and comparatively few stories about couples where both members are the same gender, and I felt like there should be more. I also gave the created woman a name, as the woman in Pygmalion didn’t have a name, and she seemed depersonalized because of it (the name Deryn comes from Welsh, and means bird). I kept the symbolism of a burnt offering and a festival of love from the original story.

Bibliography: Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Tony Kline (2000). Source

Reading notes: Week 2

Origin Stories

The Man in the Moon (Laos) (Laos Folk-Lore by Katherine Neville Fleeson)

Blacksmith can't make up his mind. Asks to be a stone, a stone cutter, the sun, and ends up stuck as the moon.

The Hare that was not Afraid to Die (Buddhist) (Eastern Stories and Legends by Marie L. Shedlock (1920))

Before he was born as a human, the Buddha was a rabbit. Monkey, Jackal, and Otter are his friends.

Buddha tells his friends to fast and give food to beggars. Otter and Jackal steal food, but do not eat it. Monkey picks mangoes, but doesn't eat them. Buddha decides to allow anyone who asks for food to eat him. 

Sakka, the King of Gods, disguises himself and tests the Buddha. Buddha responds to his request for food by telling him to build a fire. Buddha then jumps into the fire, which he discovers to be an illusion. Sakka is impressed by the Buddha's willingness to die, and paints the Buddha's likeness on the moon to commemorate it.

The Hare in the Moon Source

The Divine

The Eight-Forked Serpent of Koshi (Japan) (Romance of Old Japan, Part I: Mythology and Legend by E. W. Champney and F. Champney (1917))

Susa-no-wo sees chopstick in the river, follows the river upstream to find the people who used it. He finds an elderly couple and a young woman. Old man introduces the group as Ashinadzuchi (him), Tenadzuchi (his wife), and Kushinada-hime (their daughter). They are sad because an eight-headed monster has eaten their eight daughters, and will be back soon to eat Kushinada-hime. He says the monster is as big as eight valleys and eight mountains. Susa-no-wo offers to kill the monster in exchange for getting Kushinada-hime's hand in marriage. Ashinadzuchi is hesitant, so Susa-no-wo says he is the brother of the goddess Amaterasu. Ashinadzuchi consents to the arrangement.

Susa-no-wo turns Kushinada-hime into a hair comb. He asks Tenadzuchi to make a batch of sake of eightfold strength while be builds a structure with eight doors. Behind each door, he places a vat full of the sake. He then waits for the monster, which eventually arrives and gets drunk on the sake, which causes it to fall asleep. Susa-no-wo draws his sword and cuts the monster into a thousand pieces. Inside the tail of the monster, he finds a magical sword, which he delivers to the God of Heaven. He then marries Kushinada-hime.

The Supernatural

The Indian who Wrestled with a Ghost (from the Teton Lakota) (Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Katharine Berry Judson (1913))

A man is walking through the woods when he meets an owl. He falls asleep at the edge of the forest and wakes up to a woman screaming about her son. He lies still, watching through a hole in his blanket as the woman arrives at his camp. He plays dead as she tries to wake him, but when she pulls out a knife and tries to cut his foot, he jumps up and yells at her. She runs away. He lies back down and doesn't sleep.

In the morning, he sees a burial scaffold and thinks the woman was the ghost from the scaffold.

The next night, he makes camp by another forest. A traveler comes by and asks the man for some food. After he eats it, the man realizes that the traveler is in fact a skeleton. The skeleton challenges the man to wrestle, promising that, if the man wins, he will defeat his enemy and steal horses. The man builds up his fire before starting the wrestling. The skeleton becomes weak near the fire, and the man finally wins by pushing him into the fire as the sun rises. The skeleton's promise comes true, and the man defeats his enemy and steals some horses.

Metamorphosis

Pygmalion (Ancient Greece) (Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Tony Kline (2000))

Pygmalion sculpts a woman, who he falls in love with. He brings it presents and cuddles it. On Venus's festival day, he prays to her and wishes that his could have his ivory girl as a bride. He comes home and, when he touches the statue, she turns into a real woman. The two get married and have a child.

Tricksters

The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal (India) (Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1912))

A tiger is trapped in a cage. He asks a passing Brahman to let him out, promising not to eat him afterward. When the tiger is let out of the cage, he goes against his word and tries to eat the Brahman. After much pleading from the Brahman, the tiger agrees to not eat him if the first three things the Brahman asks take the Brahman's side.

First, the Brahman asks a pipal-tree, which has no sympathy and tells him to "be a man". He then finds a buffalo turning a well-wheel, who tells the Brahman that he was a fool to expect gratitude. He finally asks the road he stands on, and the road laments that it is useful to everyone and yet gets no thanks, and it thus has no sympathy for the Brahman.

The Brahman runs into a jackal as he walks back to the tiger, who asks to hear the story. The Brahman retells it several times, and the jackal repeatedly claims to have not heard the story, could the Brahman please tell it again? The Brahman eventually takes the jackal back with him to the tiger, and asks the tiger to allow him to tell the jackal the story just one more time. The tiger agrees, and the Brahman tells the story again, drawing it out as long as he can. The jackal once again pretend to be confused, asking the tiger how he got in the cage. The jackal pretends not to understand, and the tiger, fed up, jumps back into the cage. The jackal shuts the door, once again trapping the tiger in the cage again.

Fables

The Lion (Aesop) (The Fables of Aesop by Joseph Jacobs (1894))

The Lion's Share

The Lion, the Jackal, the Fox, and the Wolf go hunting together, and manage to kill a stag. The Lion tells the other three to quarter it, and then claims all four parts for various reasons. The fox is irritated.

Androcles and the Lion

Androcles, a slave, flees into the forest, where he finds an injured lion. The lion has a large thorn in its paw. Androcles removes the thorn, and the lion takes Androcles back to his cave and brings him food. The two are recaptured, and Androcles is sentenced to be fed to the lion. The lion, though starving, doesn't attack Androcles, but merely licks his hand. Androcles explains the story to the Emperor, who lets both Androcles and the lion go free. (Note: Lions don't live in the forest)

The Lion and the Statue

A Lion claims that a man cannot use a statue as proof that humans are stronger than lions, because a human made the statue.

The Lion in Love

A lion proposes to a young woman. Her parents say the lion needs to be de-clawed and have his teeth removed first. He does this, but the parents once again tell him no, and tell him to do his worst.

Fairy Tale

The Three Roses (Czech) (The Key of Gold by Josef Baudis (1922))

A mother goes to market with shopping lists from her three daughters. Two of them ask for many things; the third asks for three roses. She gets lost on the way home and happens upon a palace, where she picks three roses for her daughter. After picking the roses, she is confronted by a basilisk, who demands her daughter in exchange for the roses. The mother arrives home and tells her daughter, who agrees to the basilisk's demands and goes to the castle.

After arriving at the castle, the basilisk demands that the girl nurse him every day. On the third day, he brings a sword and tells her to cut his head off. She resists, but he insists, and she does, releasing a serpent. The serpent asks for her to cut its head off as well, which she does, and the serpent changes into a young man, who then marries her.

Reading Options

I have a few directions I am interested in going with my readings. I'm very interested in Celtic mythology, specifically regarding Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, but there seems to be very little in the UnTextbook regarding Celtic mythology. There is a fairly robust collection of fairy tales form the British Isles, though, which I could also work with. I'm also interested in the stories of the Pacific Northwest; I grew up in Oregon, and I heard a lot of the Native American stories from the region when I was little, so I'm interested in reading more about those and seeing how they compare to what I remember. Additionally, I'm curious about the mythology surrounding ravens and crows. They have roles in mythologies from all over the world, and it's interesting to see the similarities and differences in how they're represented in different cultures.

Pacific Northwest
Stories from the Native tribes of the Pacific Northwest, including three stories about Raven.

Celtic Fairytales
Fairytales from the British Isles, most of which I've never read before.

Welsh Fairytales
Fairytales from Wales, featuring a story called "Crows" which is, predictably, about crows.

A raven walking on snow Source

Time Management

I read The Important Habit of Just Starting and How to Beat Procrastination. I think that, for some people, these articles might be legitimately helpful, but they address a type of procrastinating that is fundamentally different than the way I procrastinate. I've always had trouble getting work done ahead of time- for example, freshman year, I had an 8 page term paper. I had three months to write this paper. I wrote it the night before it was due. But the problem wasn't that I had kept putting it off- I had scheduled time into my schedule every week to go to the library and work on it. Every week, I went to the library and tried to write, and every week, I read a bunch of articles from the journals we were supposed to be getting our research from- usually starting with articles that were relevant to my paper, but always getting distracted and reading things that had no relevance to my paper. I finally figured out that the library was the problem, and started working in places where I couldn't possibly get sucked into an article. But I could never manage to focus on the paper. I ended up having about half a page written when I sat down to write the rest of it the night before it was due (a very bad half a page, at that). I finished the paper that night, very easily, and I got 100% on it. This cycle repeats itself every term- I have a long paper to write, I try and try to get it done ahead of time, but I just can't focus on it until the night before it's due, when I "hyperfocus" (for lack of a better term) and finish the whole thing in a few hours. I know it's a problem, but every strategy I've tried to fix it is ineffective. I've tried joining study groups in my classes, which just results in me being more distracted during my writing time, and I've tried setting myself earlier deadlines, like "I have to have half the paper finished by March 4", which invariably results in one of three things- I write the first half of the paper the night of March 3, I write the entire paper the night of March 3, or my brain says "that's not really a due date", and I write the paper the night before it's actually due. Last term, I literally read two entire books and wrote a five page paper about them in one night. I had had the books for weeks, and I'd tried to read them every single day, but I could never focus right. So, that's my biggest time management challenge, I think, but in a way, I do have a time management method that works well for me- I've never gotten a grade that wasn't an A on one of my rushed papers. It's just a very stressful and bad method.

Editing: a step I rarely have time to do Source

Technology

I feel like I'm familiar with all of the technology skills we need for this class. I've run a Tumblr blog for years, and I used to have a (very bad) website about vampires hosted on one of the free website hosting platforms. I use Bookmarks almost every day, and I've used Paint, GIMP, and Photoshop for image editing (I've also used Word and PowerPoint for basic image editing; they aren't great by any means, but they work in a pinch for resizing and basic color adjustment). The only thing I haven't done is graphics creation, but I just looked up a few, and they seem pretty simple to use.
The major way this class differs from other online classes I've taken is that all of the content is hosted off of the main class platform. I kind of like it, because Canvas can be a hassle sometimes (mostly because teachers put things in strange places that you'd never expect to find them, but also because it has a tendency to load really slowly on my computer), but it was also kind of confusing at first.

Very accurate. Made with AutoMotivator using a personal photo

Assignments

There are some assignments that I'm very excited about, and others that I'm not super excited for. I'm really looking forward to the reading assignments, and I'm excited to get to write stories as well. I'm not terribly excited for the commenting- I always get nervous when I have to comment on other people's work, and I know this won't be any different.
This is actually a lot like what I did in the other online classes I've taken. I did a whole year of online school in high school, and it was pretty similar to this in many of my classes. Students would do readings, and then we'd usually post in the "discussions" section of the class, and then leave a comment on one to three other students' discussion posts. The creation of a term-long project is also something I have experience with. I have had several classes (mostly English, but also a History class and a "Freshman Experience" class) where we had to make a semester portfolio. One of those portfolios involved writing a series of stories about a fictional alien species. We had to create the species, their customs and traditions, and design a myth system that they followed.

Books by Abhi Sharma on Flickr Source

Growth Mindset

Before today, I had seen the RSA Animate video. I didn't remember much about it, but what I did remember was the incredible irony that we watched the video in a class at high school that, like most high school classes, was graded based on success, not effort. Our teacher praised that video for the entire class period, then turned around and openly shamed students who had gotten low scores on our homework that week. It seemed incredibly hypocritical to me that we watched this video all about how people who aren't doing so great can and should try and can eventually improve their abilities, yet during the same class, students who tried incredibly hard were publicly humiliated in front of all their classmates, while students who didn't try at all (in this case, me) were praised simply for getting high scores.
As a result of this experience, I have some issues with the growth mindset concept. On it's own, I think it's a great idea- people should be encouraged to try again if they can't complete a task or understand a concept on the first try. However, it clashes horribly with the American educational system, which, as several of the articles and videos mentioned or alluded to, rewards immediate success and seems to almost discourage trying, because no matter how good you eventually get at whatever it is you're practicing, you'll always be compared to the person who succeeded on their first attempt, because "if only you could be as good as them". This educational system also pumps out an endless stream of young adults who crave instant gratification- many of my classmates freshman year, for example, were so used to succeeding at everything on the first try that, when they "failed" on an assignment in college (not always even an actual failure- I saw a student in tears over getting a B on a quiz), they immediately gave up and stopped trying in that class, because, in their minds, they're obviously not good at it. If we remade our educational system from the ground up to reward effort as well as success, the growth mindset would be very applicable. However, in its current state, the two are mostly incompatible, in my opinion.
At the level of education I'm at (the second half of a bachelor's degree, taking mostly upper division classes), the growth mindset is applicable to about half of classes. In this class, where there are a lot of assignments, you have a chance to put in effort and improve over time. In other classes, however, your grade might be based on one paper, or a paper and an exam, or, worst of all, just one exam. In these classes, there's really no space to apply the growth mindset, because, when your abilities are assessed only once over the course of a term, you have no opportunity to show growth. In this class, I hope to be able to apply the growth mindset to my work. I know I won't do amazingly on my first few assignments, but I can keep trying and getting better throughout the term.

 This cat reminds me of when I try to play an instrument- one of my favorite hobbies, which I'm very bad at. Source

Introduction to Raven

Hi everyone!
My name is Raven. I'm a sophomore Human Health and Biology (Anthropology) and Biology major and a German minor at OU (yeah, it's a lot). I get to take some awesome classes for my majors! In Spring 2017, I took an honors research class about the navigation of scorpions, and my team published a paper about our research in the Journal of Arachnology just this month! This semester, I'm taking another honors research class, this time about forensic entomology. It's also really fun!
I also get to take some really fun anthropology classes. Last term, I took a class about the evolution of primates, and we got to go to the zoo and watch lots of videos about monkeys and lemurs. I loved it.

The mouse lemur. Indisputably the cutest primate. Source

Outside of classes, I have a few hobbies. I love going to concerts. I went to two concerts this summer- Warped Tour 2018, which is a traveling pop-punk festival, and Panic! at the Disco- and I'm planning on going to see my all time favorite band, All Time Low, in Dallas in October (I saw them and got to meet them last summer, so I'm really excited to see them again).

This is my favorite All Time Low song! Source: YouTube

I also really like reading books- my favorite books are the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan, the Shadowhunter Chronicles by Cassandra Clare, and pretty much anything about historical crimes- and playing instruments- I play violin pretty well, flute passably, and piano, bass, and mandolin badly (though I can play most of the big All Time Low songs on mandolin. Badly, but its still something). I love playing Dungeons and Dragons with my friends, too- I especially like playing characters that play instruments, so I have an excuse to break out my mandolin skills. Related to D&D, I really love making and wearing fantasy medieval costumes- mostly for the medieval fair, but also sometimes for just wearing to D&D. 

I have one pet, my cat Schrödinger. She likes sleeping, eating, and climbing trees. She also likes hunting birds, but she's really, really bad at it. She lives with my mom in Washington, so I don't get to see her much, but she's the best cat in the world.

Storybook Favorites

Huntresses of Artemis: How to Join and Immortal Girl Gang
This storybook project covers a topic that I consider myself fairly familiar with, the story of the Greek goddess Artemis, goddess of the hunt, and her followers, a hunting group of immortal young women. However, this retelling of the Artemis myths was unique for several reasons, most notably that it incorporated characters from not just Greek myths, but also Sumerian and Indian myths. I felt like the introduction did a good job of describing, in loose terms, what the general topic of the stories would be, while still leaving room for surprises and deviations form the original myths. I also enjoyed how the stories incorporated Artemis interacting with characters from other belief systems; although it might not be mythologically accurate, I thought it was interesting to see how the different myth systems meshed.

Selkie Tales
This storybook project covers a topic that I'm less familiar with than the Greek myths. Although I am interested in Scottish mythology and have a passing knowledge of selkies and other creatures from the mythology, I don't have nearly the in-depth knowledge that I have of the Greek myths. I liked the frame story that was used for this storybook, of a mother selkie telling her daughter stories of their own kind. I liked the inclusion of a linked song on the introduction and in the last story; I felt like the songs added to the atmosphere of the story, and I might consider including something similar in my own project.

In the Seven Woods
This storybook took a different approach than the other two, using four stories compiled by one author, rather than stories from various sources, and combining all the stories to make one long story about the same characters. As with the Selkie Tales, I have only a passing familiarity with the myths in this storybook; I have more knowledge of Irish mythology and the associated creatures than I do Scottish, but I can't say I have any real familiarity with the specific characters, besides a handful of gods that I can recognize by name. I liked the frame of combining all of the stories into one narrative; however, I felt like using stories all from one source was a little less creative than the other storybooks, which pulled from different sources and even different myth systems.

Queen Maeve, one of the characters in In the Seven Woods