Story Telling Week 14

The Cap and The Wolf

Little Red Riding Cap

Little Red Riding Cap loved her grandmother and her grandmother loved her. The red cap that she wore all day and night was made for her by her grandmother. It had been a while since little red riding cap had seen her grandmother so she decided to go see her. Her grandmother lived in the woods and it was a long and dangerous journey. Still little red riding hood was not scared so she set out to go see her grandmother.

Meanwhile elsewhere in the woods there was a huntsman hunting an big bad wolf. Now the wolf was smart and able to escape the hunter everytime the hunter got close. Still the hunter would not give up.

Back to the girl in the red cap that was on her way to see her grandmother. She was skipping along singing that she was on her way to see her grandmother when the wolf happened along her path and heard her singing. Now there is nothing that a wolf loves more than a meal except maybe two meals. He knew that if he went to the grandmothers house he would have a easy meal and if he waited there he would have another easy meal.

When the grandmother heard a knocking at her door she assumed it was her granddaughter so she opened it. When she did the wolf jumped in and swallowed her whole. The wolf decided to dress up as the grandmother because if he answered the door as the wolf the girl might escape, but she came in and got really close to the wolf then there would be no escape.

The little girl in the red cap known as little red cap arrived at her grandmothers house. She knocked on the door and someone inside who she assumed was not the big bad wolf but instead was her grandmother told her to come inside so she did.

The girl saw that her grandmother aka the big bad wolf in disguise was in bed and asked what was wrong and the wolf dressed up as her grandmother said it was cold and that she didn’t want to catch a cold. The wolf told the girl to come closer so the girl did.

The girl noticed that her grandmother had a pair of big eyes and even though it had been a long time since she had seen her grandmother she began to wonder why her grandmother’s eyes were so big. The wolf told her it was so he could see her better and told her to come closer. The girl did and by now the girl was sitting on the bed next to the wolf.

The girl noticed that her grandmother had really big teeth and wondered why her teeth were so big and the wolf told her they were big so he could eat her with them and swallowed the girl whole.

The hunter saw the house and figured the wolf had found a great hiding spot so he kicked in the door and found the wolf. He pulled out his ax and cut the wolf’s belly open killing the wolf and allowing the grandmother and little red riding cap to escape.

To celebrate the grandmother cooked up wolf stew and they all lived happily ever after.

Author’s notes
This is from Little Red Riding Cap in the Grimm Ashliman unit. I kept it pretty much to the script with this one and didn’t change too much. Another name for this story is Little red riding hood. I didn’t want to change too much because why mess with a good thing. I think there is just enough of my finger prints on this story so that I was able to put my own spin on it without changing much.

Bibliography

Little Red Cap from Dan Ashliman's Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales

Picture Attribution

Fleury François Richard [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Story Telling Week 13

The Little Ginger Boy

Gingerbread Family

There was once two Ginger people. They lived in a gingerbread house. They wanted a Gingerbread Family. They asked Hostess for a Ginger child. They told Hostess that even if the Ginger baby was only the size of a gumbdrop they would love him. So they oven was heated to 325 degrees and 90 minutes later a Gingerbaby the size of a gumbdrop popped out. The Gingerbread family was so happy.

They Ginger parents loved the Ginger boy with all their chalky candy valentine hearts. As a matter of fact their hearts even said “I love You,” well one of them said “You’re Great,” but all the rest of the Hearts said “I love you,” except for the ones that said, “Be Mine,” which is sorta the same.

One day the father was working in the Tootsie Roll garden and needed help. His son asked if he could help and the father said that he was too small, but the little boy insisted and eventually the father let him help. Soon enough a bunch of Nerds came a long and asked if they could have the Ginger boy that was the size of a gumbdrop. The father said no at first, but the little boy said it would be ok if the father gave him to the Nerds because he would soon return and then the father agreed.

The nerds all bounced around with excitement and they headed down the road with the Gingerbread boy. When the nerds were not looking the Ginger boy ran off and hid by the Hershey lake. The Nerds look high and low but could not find the boy. After a little while the Ginger Bread boy heard the laughing of some taffy so he went to see what was so funny. The taffy or better known as the Laffy Taffy were planning to break into the factory down the road from Willy Wonka’s place. After hearing what the Taffy were up to the Ginger Boy chimed in and told them that he could help. So off to the Right Side Twix factory they all went.

When they got to the Right Side Twix factory the Taffy Stretched up all the way to the top window and tossed the Ginger boy in to it. Once inside the factory the Ginger boy began to yell “The Left Side is here, they are trying to steal our secrets” and everyone in the factory came running to the window. The Laffy Taffy were scared of being caught so they ran. In the commotion the Ginger boy jumped into the wrapping paper and took a nap.

When he woke up he had been mistakenly wrapped up into one of the Twix Wrappers. Being as small as a gumbdrop afterall, no one had noticed. He began yelling from inside the wrapper and someone was scared. Being very superstitious Mr. Mars decided to shut down all the factory and ordered all the Twix opened and rewrapped. Just when the Ginger Boy was opened the Krispy Kreme army attacked and stole all the Twix candy from the factory.

The Ginger Boy knew he had to think quick so he started talking and soon one of the Kripsy Kreme soldiers noticed. He told the soldier where there were more Twix that were easy to capture, but he also told the soldier that if the whole army attacked that the soldier would not get any credit for the plan so it was best if the soldier went by himself.

Then next morning just before dawn the soldier and the Ginger boy in the Twix wrapper from the Right Side Twix factory just down the road from the Willy Wonka factory next to the Hershey lake left for the place where more Twix could be captured. The boy took the soldier to his house and told him the only way in was to jump down the icing chimney. They soldier was worried about the heat but the boy told him it would just be enough to warm him up and make him softer so he could fit down the chimney better. When they got into the house the boy screamed “Mom. Dad. I am home.” Both his parents came running so happy to see their little boy. The Krispy Kreme soldier was angry because he had been tricked, but that was no problem for the Ginger parents. All they did was eat him, because what is better than a warm Krispy Kreme donut first thing in the morning. And they all lived happily ever after.

Author's Notes

I based this on the Thumbling from the Grimm Stories. The story is about a little child born the size of a thumb. Two men buy him from his parents and he goes on an adventure and eventually ends up back home. I did change the story quite a bit, but still it is pretty true to the original. I invite you all to check out the grimm stories.

Bibliography

The Thumbling from Margaret Hunt's Household Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm

Picture Attribution

By Orsotron (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Story Telling Week 12

How Robin met John

Robin Hood and Little John Meet

Robin Hood needed a break so he left his men. He was just worn out from all the robbing of the rich and giving to the poor, not to mention the tights. The tights were way toooooooooo, well, tight. He wasn’t eating, he was stressed out, and he and Maid Marian had gotten into a quarrel over some young adult novel about, of all things Vampires. True story. So being that he was tired, he decided to take a walk. 

As he was walking he wished he had a pair of Air Jordan’s instead of the ugly leather shoes that were so in fashion during that period. Still he did enjoy the walk because the fresh air helped to clear his mind. Not to mention it was fresh air, I mean have you ever been around a bunch of men in the woods, let alone a bunch of merry men? 

Little John, around the same time that Robin Hood decided to take a walk also thought that he could use a break. Though he had not yet met Robin Hood, he had heard of him and had thought about his own life. He thought about all the time he had wasted eating, drinking ale, eating, and reading a dumb young adult novel about Vampires of all things. He was terribly embarrassed about it. The eating that is. 

Robin came to a bridge and wanted to cross it, unfortunately for him, so did Little John. They both decided to cross the bridge at the same time. When they met in the middle the stopped and looked at each other. Now there was no need for either one of them to be in each other’s way, but it was customary in this day and age to for no apparent reason challenge a person to a fight when you saw them. Even though there was plenty of room for both the men to pass on the bridge, they were men of custom.

Now Robin Hood was a fair fighter. He had a sword and Little John had a wooden pole. Robin would never unfairly attack another man, unless that man had money or if that man was outnumbered, or if that man had money. Being that he was a fair fighter Robin threw down his sword and picked up a wooden pole. 

The two men fought. Well not so much as fought as closed their eyes a swung wildly at one another. Little John knocked Robin in the water and as Robin stood there in the water soaking wet and still hating his tights and wishing he had a pair of Air Jordan 1’s looked up to see his merry men arrive not looking as merry as they could be looking.

They men readied to attack Little John, but Robin stopped them. He walked up to Little John and congratulated him on the duel and invited him to live with them in his camp. Little John asked about their supply of food and ale and when he found out they had plenty agreed to live with them. And that my friends is the very true story of how Robin Hood met Little John.

Author's Notes 

This is a retelling of when Robin Hood met Little John from the Robin Hood Ballad Unit. Of course I did take quite a bit of license with this story, but the stories were in song form and there is a bit of humor to the stories so I tried to mirror that silliness in my story. The main aspects of the story all there. This is from the Ballad Little John.

Bibliography

"Little John" from The English and Scottish Popular Ballads collected by Francis James Child

Picture Attribution

Louis Rhead [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Story Telling Week 11

The Devil and the I.R.S.

I.R.S. Building

Walter was a small man. Small in every way. His eyes were small, his hands were small, and his aspirations in life were small, or rather short sighted. He worked as an auditor for the IRS. Most times when people asked what he did for a living he simply said he was in the financial business. He had never made many friends because being so short sighted he never really found it prudent or better yet appropriate to make room in his life for other people. Instead he chose to focus on gathering as much money as possible for the IRS, and a little on the side for himself.

One day Walter climbed into a cab at the same time as a stranger. The stranger was dressed in the same grey suit at Walter and even had the same small eyes. The stranger however was much more friendly and pleasant that Walter.

“Hello there buddy, I am Sam nice to meet you.”

Most times people just looked past Walter and rarely did they ever speak directly to him.

“Hello, I am Walter.”

Sam looked at Walter and noticed that they had the same grey suit and small eyes.

“We must be brothers,” Sam said to Walter. “What do you do for a living?”

Walter being embarrassed that he worked for the IRS replied, “Well what do you do for a living?”

“I’m in the financial business…Some would say I am a collector of money.” Sam answered.

“Me too.”

“Well then we must be brothers.”

Sam and Walter continued to talk about their business, and Walter began to grow fond of Sam. After all this was the only person that talked to Walter, well other than his mother, but she had too because Walter lived in her basement.

“Where are you from Sam?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“Well let’s just say that I am from somewhere that is hot most of the time.”

“Oh, Florida. That sounds nice. What’s it like there?”

“Not what you would expect actually.” Sam said as he smiled.

The cab came to a stop and both of the men got out.

Sam said, “This is the building that I collect money at. I have to go see a man about a debt.”

“Do you mind if I come along?”

“Not at all,” Sam replied. The men stepped into an elevator and took it to the basement. In the basement there was a man working on a vending machine.

“This darn thing is always breaking, hey you guys can have this machine,” the vendor said.

“There you go Sam, looks like you own a vending machine.”

“No not really Walter, he doesn’t mean it. See watch.”

The man finished fixing the machine and closed it. “Well I guess I will keep it.”

“See Walter I told you.”

“Well I have to collect some money in this building.” Walter said.

“May I come with you?”

“Of course you can.” The two men took the elevator to the top floor of the building and then walked to a door. Walter knocked on the door and a lady answered. “I am from the IRS, and I have going to do an audit on you. I am going to find something wrong and you will goto jail, but we can make this all go away from $200 dollars.”

The lady said, “I don’t have that much money, and you can goto hell if you don’t stop lying and change your ways.”

Sam leaned in and asked the lady, “Do you mean that?”

The lady replied, “With all my heart.”

“Listen here lady give me that money or you are going to jail.”

Sam placed his hand on Walter and said, “hey relax, no need to collect any money from her, you are coming with me.”

Walter turned around to see that Sam had turned into the devil himself, in just enough time to wish he had not tried to cheat the lady as the devil dragged him to hell.

Author's Notes

This is a retelling of the Story of the Summoner from the Canterbury Tales Unit. The story is about a summoner that meets the devil and then is taken to hell by the devil for not repenting. I updated this story because the original version in the unit was so good that it was the only I felt I could retell this story with my own spin. 

Bibliography

"The Summoner's Story" from  Eva March Tappan's The Chaucer Story Book.

Picture Attribution

Exterior of the Internal Revenue Service office in midtown New York.
Date 1 July 2010
Source Own work
Author MBisanz talk
Permission
(Reusing this file)
Matthew G. Bisanz, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publishes it under the following licenses:
GNU head Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.
w:en:Creative Commons
attribution share alike This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.

Attribution: Matthew G. Bisanz

The Man, The Eagles, The Panther, The Hornets

Hornet

There was a man that lived in New Mexico. He was an Apache, but was alone without his tribe. The man was taken in by the Pueblo Indians. They took care of the man as if he was one of their own. This man however was poor, and was unable to repay the Pueblo for anything that they did for him, so he did his best to help out with duties around the camp. The Pueblos didn’t mind that the man was poor and could not pay. They were content to take care of the man for no other reason than they were just good people.

One day the man was on a hunt with the Pueblos and they came across an eagle’s nest. In the nest was two baby eagles. The man wanted a closer look at the eagles so the Pueblos lowered him down into the nest with a rope. When the man got down to the eagles he realized that they were unprotected and decided to stay with them so he took off the rope. The Pueblos lowered the rope each day and each day the man would not leave the eagles.

When an eagle returned it saw that the man had been watching the baby eagles and saw that this was a good man. The eagle could see that the man was without food or water so the eagle gave the man a small piece of ice. The man was so thirsty that he did not believe that the ice would satisfy him, still he drank it and found that he was satisfied. The eagle then removed a stone and invited the man into it’s house. The eagle could see that the man was hungry so it gave him a piece of fish. The man saw the fish and thought that it was too small and that he would never be satisfied. After eating the fish the man was satisfied. The eagle then gave the man a pair of wings to wear so that he could fly with the eagles.

When the man flew around the cave with the eagles he became tired and began to fall. The other eagle pushed him up to a hole in the ceiling of the cave. A panther that lived there lowered his tale and the man grabbed it and pulled himself up. The panther told him that they were at war with the hornets. There were black hornets that lived in black houses and there were yellow hornets that lived in yellow houses. The man could see the hornets killing the eagles and became angry.

The man fought the hornets for the eagles and killed them. When he killed them he would place their bodies on a stick. One of the eagles that had now come to look at the man as one of their family said “look at my grandson, he has killed so many of the hornets to protect us, he has two sticks full of hornets.”


Author Notes
This is from the Apache Tales Unit. It is the story of “The man who helped the Eagles.” This is a pretty close retelling of the story. I chose not to change much in the story because it was somewhat confusing. Most of the Apache Tales Unit was like this for me. So instead of updating it or putting my own spin on it I felt it was best to just take the straight forward approach to retelling this story.

Bibliography

"The Man Who Helped the Eagles" from Jicarilla Apache of New Mexico, collected and translated by P. E. Goddard

Picture Attribution

By Richard Bartz, Munich aka Makro Freak (Own work) [CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

Storytelling Week 9

The Boy that Nobody Spoke To

The House Fire

There was a quiet kid in class that nobody ever talked to. They all just looked at him and made up stories about him. The girls called him creepy and the boy called him whatever they wanted because to them he was an easy target.
One day there was a house fire and everyone in our class was wondering who started it. That is when Cheryl told everyone that she saw the quiet boy start it.
Soon the police showed up and took him to the police station for questioning. The entire school was a buzz about the quiet boy that nobody ever spoke to. They were making up stories about how he was a serial killer and that he probably had dead cats tied up in his basement.  Still I always wondered about Cheryl’s story because every day we walked to school together and the day of the fire was no different. We were nowhere the house when the fire was set.
This bothered me so I went to the police station to talk to the boy that no one ever spoke to. He was crying and I told him what I knew about the story. He told me that if that was true I had to get her to admit it. I wanted to help the quiet boy, but I didn’t know how, so he told me to be at the house fire tomorrow night and to get her talk about it and that he would take care of the rest. As I left the boy that every adult wanted to talk to I passed his father. He was dressed nice.
The next night Cheryl and I were walking and I asked her about her lie. She confessed that she made it up. She said that the guy that nobody spoke to annoyed her because he seemed creepy and that she wanted to get rid of him. When she heard about the fire she saw her chance to get rid of him and did. Just as she finished telling me the story a bunch of police dressed in black rushed towards us and arrested her for making a false statement to an officer.
Not long after the quiet boy that I talked to returned to school. Everyone that told stories about him hung their heads in shame. They all realized that they never took the opportunity to understand him and because of that he was almost sent to prison. Soon everyone wanted to talk to the quiet boy.
Turns out that his dad was not only well dressed, but the governor of the state. The boy and I became friends and often we talked about the time he went to jail. He told me that because I had done the right thing and made everything right that he would always be in my debt. If ever I was in trouble all I had to do was dial his number and ask him for help and he would help me in any way that he could.

Author’s Notes
I based this story on the Rattlesnake’s revenge from the Cherokee Myth’s Unit. I have changed the characters in the story and updated it. Still I stayed true to one of the morals of the story about not judging things that we know nothing about or that scare us.

Bibliography
Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney (1900)

Picture Attribution

By LukeBam06 (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or FAL], via Wikimedia Commons

StoryTelling Week 7

The Centipede and the Spit of Doom

Giant Centipede

Hi I am Bob. I live in this village in Asia. I know it is kind of an out of place name here in my village, but what can I say, it is the name my parents gave me. Don’t be so judgmental. I mean who says your name is all that cool?

Sorry, it is just that I am a little low on the self esteem if you know what I mean. It is just that I have been going through some personal issues lately, and well it is not your fault, and also ever since MTV stopped playing music I have been on edge. Well back to what I was telling you.

So I live in this village and every night this centipede comes and takes one of us. We are not sure where he takes us, but I am guessing that he eats us. So basically my village is a buffet for this thing. Our leader is no help either, which is weird because the dude can turn into a dragon, so I don’t know why he don’t just light that thing on fire so we can have a centipede cookout.

Well today was a great day because we were rescued by this stranger. Our leader was the one who brought the stranger to us. We fed him and told him of our ordeal. When the centipede showed up the stranger pulled out his bow and arrow and shot one at the centipede, but it just bounced off. He shot another one at him and it also bounced off. Then he licked his last arrow and shot it at the centipede and this time the arrow killed the centipede. Thank God this guy showed up. I think it was pretty convenient that he appeared to save us. Our leader gave the guy some gifts and sent him on his way.

Still something was odd about the way the stranger killed the centipede. I asked someone why he licked the arrow. They told me that saliva was poisonous to the centipede, so the man tipped his arrow in his saliva to kill the beast. Apparently this was common knowledge.

Hold on now, so you mean to tell me that all this time we could have just spit at the darn thing and killed it. I mean you would think if it was common knowledge that someone in the village would have known about it. We could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble if we would have just spit at it. Think of all the lives that would have been saved. Think of the plot holes in the story about the centipede that could have been avoided. If only someone would have just spoke up.

I don’t wanna come across as bitter, because I am thankful that we are safe from the centipede. I do wonder what happened to that man that saved us too. Someone told me once that the man was actually a great king in his own land. At any rate I sure am grateful to him.

Author's Notes

This is a retelling of My Lord Bag of Rice from the Japan Fairy Tales. This is first person account of the story. I made this a silly story because the original is a silly story full of all kinds of plot holes. Still this story is the same other than the first person account.

Bibliography 

My Lord Bag of Rice/ Japan Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki

Picture Attribution

By Tod Baker from Tianjin, China (gigantea (7)  Uploaded by berichard) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Storytelling Week 4

The Mouse, The Wiseman, and The Well

 

The Mouse

 

 

Let me tell you a story……..

I was a mouse…no really I was……I used to run around and play all day long and have no worries. One day I met a wise man, and at first I was scared of him, but after awhile I realized this wise man was someone that could be a friend. In those days life was much simpler. I would run around and eat the leftover scraps that he would drop. I guess he was bored because one day he gave me the power to speak. We used to sit up at night and talk to each other all the time.

One day he asked me what I wanted, so I thought about it. I am not afraid of much because I am small and most times other animals don’t even notice me at all. Still there are times when I go to the river that I am harassed by these cats. Bunch of bullies. So I asked the wise man to make me into a cat so I could teach these cats a lesson. This is where my trouble started.

See after I became a cat I was not satisfied. I wanted to be bigger and stronger. So the wise man made me a dog, an ape, a boar, and finally a elephant. See, I thought being an elephant would be great because I was huge and powerful and no one could mess with me. But then I saw something else I wanted.

I saw a king and his queen. We became friends me and the king. One day he tried to put his wife on my back, can you believe that, a animal as great as I having to haul around some queen…..Well that didn’t work out for her because I threw her off my back and ran away. Still, I did envy her because the king picked her up and treated her with care. How awesome would it be for someone to treat me like that, I wanted to be a queen, so I asked the wise man to make me a queen. He told me he couldn’t, but that he could make me a beautiful woman.

Being a woman was great. I spent most of my days hanging out with the wise man. We were best of friends.

One day the wise man went fishing and who should show up at my door step but he king. He couldn’t resist me. I even got him to throw out that raggedy old queen that he tried to throw on my back. We were married and I finally had what I wanted. I was happy.

Soooooooooo…..One day I was by this well and I was thinking about how good I had it, and I began to jump up and down with glee, and well I fell into the well and died. I was always a clumbsy person, falling all the time, I should have asked for the wise man to give me great balance, but well I guess hindsight is 20/20.

Anyways, the king took back the old queen and left me in the well. They covered me with dirt and now I am a poppy tree. I guess it is an ok life, except I have all these darn mice, cats, dogs, apes, and people climbing on me…….

Author’s Notes
This is from the Tales of Bengal unit. It is the story of the origin of opium. The story was much longer than most of the other origin stories I read so I wanted to shorten it and make it a quick tale of how opium was created.

 

Bibliography

The origin of Opium from the Tales of Bengal unit link http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/07/myth-folklore-unit-folktales-of-bengal.html

 

Picture Attribution

Rasbak [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons


Story Telling Week 3

The Kind Conqueror

 

 

Circe and Odysseus



 I had been told he would come for me one day. This man, this warrior, this king would come to me one day. Would he be kind and honorable, or would he come to me as a conqueror? I did not know. I could not risk being a lamb. So I prepared. Day and night I perfected my skills in seduction, I would practice my dark art of magic, and I would study the stars for a clue to his arrival.
For each man that would arrive to my island I was prepared. Many came expecting to find a lamb right for the slaughter. Many found a lion prepared for the hunt. It was them that I conquered. Enslaved.

Then a group much like others that had come before them arrived on my shores. I invited them to sit and dine. I could sense a foul intent in their eyes when they looked at me. I told them to drink and feast. Like pigs these men were at my table. So like pigs these men became in pens. I still laugh at the thought of their hove’s in the mud, as they mucked around unaware of what had just happened. I should have sensed it, but I had grown lazy in my ways. I should have known that these men were different from the others. These men were attached by honor to the man that I had been told about.
He came looking for them. I invited him to sit and drink and feast much like the others. When the time came to place this pig in the mud to muck he was guarded. I was unable to do to him what I had been able to do to so many before him. I fell at his feet and tried to apply my skills of seduction to him, but he was immune to my ways. He forced me to promise him that I would free his men. So I did what he asked so that I could be spared.

This man was kind to me. I grew to love him and would have given my life for him if it was his will. We lived here on this island of mine in happiness, but I could sense that it was just an illusion. This fantasy love that we shared could not last. He was troubled with memories of duty to another in a far off land. A child, a wife, a kingdom, and a promise that he must keep by returning home. I knew I could not keep him here no matter how I begged. He was an honorable man; the kind of man I had hoped that Hermes had told me would come. This honorable man left to fulfill his promise. He left with my heart. A heart that has never been returned to me and day and night I am overcome with the sadness of his departure. I pray to the gods to return my heart so that I may live in peace, but my prayers go unanswered. Now I know that the man that arrived on my shores was a conqueror that came to me in the disguise of a kind and honorable man.

 

 

 

Author's Notes

This is a retelling from the Odyssey by Homer. I wanted to tell the story of Circe through her eyes and add another demension to the story. I love the Odyssey but I have always thought the more interesting stories were stories that involved the side characters. I think that the character of Circe is a great example of this and I have always wanted to understand her side of the story.

 

Bibliogray

The story of Circe from the Odyssey by Homer

 

Picture attribution

Hubert Maurer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons


Storyteling Week 2

Flower, Water, Yeast

 

 

 

Jesus and the Miracle of Bread and Fish

 

 

       My name is Mark. I feel a responsibility to tell you about my friend Jesus. I’m sure you know the story about him being the son of God and I know that there have been others that have told stories about him, but still I think it is important to give my version of the facts.

      One of the things that I am asked about when I meet people is “Did he really do miracles?” The answer is yes. I have seen a number of miracles that Jesus performed. One of the miracles that I have always found to be one of the most important is the miracle of feeding people. This may not seem like a big deal, but it is because, if we had not been able to feed all the people we probably would not been able to get all the people to stay and listen to his message.

      I remember this miracle like it was just yesterday. There was a crowd of people gathered and we were short on food. All of us were panicked except for Jesus. He just grabbed the fish and the bread and told us to feed the people. We looked at him like he was crazy. We knew he was special, but we really didn’t have any really idea about what he was capable of, yet we were loyal to his word and followed his instructions.

      We carried the baskets of food out to the people and began to feed them. As people walked up I handed them bread, and someone else handed them fish. I never looked in the baskets. I was scared enough that we would run out and looking in the baskets would have just made my fear worse. I knew I had only five loaves of bread and there seemed to be a sea of people. All through the day I handed out bread people. I kept waiting for the bread to run out, but it never did. We never ran out of fish either. Most people that were there that day did not know that there was a food shortage, so they did not know about the miracle. That is the way that miracles work. Yes some are big and extravagant like Jesus walking on water, or curing a disease, but some are simple miracles like feeding people. A miracle that people get to be a part of and never even know they are witnessing something amazing. This was the nature of Jesus’ life. I was a part of it, and I was able to see all the miracles, from the walking on water to the unlimited bread supply. Yet it was not until he was gone that I realized the biggest nature of all. The greatest miracle that I ever was able to witness was the miracle of his life and being a part of it.



Authors Note
I wanted to retell this story from the Gospel of Mark in an updated way. I chose first person because I wanted it to have an autobiographical feel to it, almost like Mark was being interviewed. I chose the miracle of the Jesus feeding the people because I have always found it to be interesting.

 Bibliography
The Gospel of Mark from the New Testament of the Bible

 

Picture Attributes

Lambert Lombard (1505/1506–1566) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Storytelling Week 1

Billy and the Dingy Man

The Big Bad Wolf

Billy had always been a rambunchous kid. His parents would tell him often that he needed to be a child and play but, none of these things interested him. When the other kids were out on the playground Billy would be inside his classroom lecturing his teacher. At dinner time Billy would always disobey his parents by not finishing his food when they did, and this often led him to having to stay at the dinner table long after his parents had finished eating.

One day while Billy was at the mall food court he looked up to see that his parents were nowhere to be found. Billy looked at this as an opportunity to be a grown up and explore the mall for himself. He walked up and down the mall pathways until he came to a video arcade. Billy knew that he should probably find his parents but he was grown up and grown up’s did what they wanted when they wanted. So he entered the arcade and looked at all the games he wanted to play. Unfortuanatly for Billy he had no money in his pockets. This seemed unfair to Billy because he was a grownup and grownup’s should have money to play all the video games they wanted to play.

An old man, in dingy jeans with long hair and a beard to match approached Billy.

“What is the problem little man?” the dingy man in dingy jeans asked.

“Well I wanna play these games, but I don’t have any money.”

“Oh I can fix that, I have a bunch of money in my van. It is just outside in the parking lot. How bout you come with me and I will give you a bunch of money so you can play all the games you want to play?”

Billy agreed and the man grabbed his arm and began to walk through the mall with the man. Along the way when Bill would try to stop the man would just tug Billy’s arm to keep him moving. Each time that Billy would stop the man would tug him a little harder. Billy was no fool. After all he was a grownup and if he wanted to stop then he should be able to stop. Billy realized that the man was trying to kidnap him, and that if he got into the man’s car Billy would never see his parents again. Unfortunately Billy noticed this at the exit to the mall. He looked around and did not see a single soul around that could help him. The man now tugged Billy really hard and though Billy tried to resist he was unable to stop the man from dragging him to his car.

“Oh please sir, I know you are going to kidnap me, and I understand that I can do nothing about it, but I wanna be the one that unlocks the door. My mom always let’s me unlock the door and I promise if you give me your keys and let me unlock the door I will go with you and not put up a fuss.” Billy said.

The man didn’t understand this request, but felt it was much easier to kidnap a kid if they didn’t put up a fight, so he handed Billy the keys.

Billy looked at the keys and pretended to push the unlock button on the key fob, but instead pushed the panic button. The loud noise caught the attention of the mall security and they came and rescued Billy from the dingy man in dingy jeans. When the police arrived and arrested the man, he realized that he should have just unlocked the door himself instead of letting Billy do it. Billy realized that he should be a kid a little longer and start listening to his parents.

Authour’s Notes

This is a retelling of the “The Wolf and Kid” from Aesop’s for Children book. I updated it by making it about a kidnapping of a child because I am a parent and I worry about my child all the time. I think kids grow up too fast these days and one of the lessons that I show was that children listen more to their parents and stop trying to grow up too fast. The original message of the story was about the wolf not allowing a goat to get him away from his purpose of eating him, and that element is in here also, but I wanted to change that a little more and make it about the young boy needing to not grow up so fast and understand that parents have reasons for the things they make you do.

Bibliography

The Aesop for Children by Aesop. 2006. web source The Project Gutenberg Ebooks

Picture Attribution
By Gunnar Ries Amphibol (Own work (own photo)) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons