Mythology Storybook Brainstorming Topics

Storybook Topic: Ghost Stories

Comments: I’ve always been into horror movies and stories, so I thought that writing about ghost stories would be right up my ally.

Possible Stories: I searched through the UnTextbook and found multiple examples of ghost stories. There are ghost stories from many different cultures, which I believe will help me with diversity in my stories.

Sample Story: One story that I enjoyed reading was The Ghost Who was Afraid of Being Bagged. It was a really good ghost story and got me interested to read more about the same subject.

Story Title: The Ghost Who was Afraid of Being Bagged

Book Title: Folk-Tales of Bengal

Author: Rev. Lal Behari Day

Year: 1912

"Brutus and the Ghost of Caesar" painted by Richard Westall 1802. Web Source: Wikipedia

Storybook Topic: Animals of Mythology

Comments: Already throughout this class, I have realized there are endless stories about animals in mythology. I think it would be fun to create stories on my own about different animals of my choosing.

Possible Stories: There are countless stories within the UnTextbook about animals. I got an opportunity last week to read many stories about animals which kind of inspired me to look more into the subject. There are also many stories from around the world about animals, so there is no shortage on inspiration

Sample Story: Although I read many stories last week, I also read one that I enjoyed this week called The Elk and the Ass. It came from the unit “Tales of a Parrot” which is a unit basically full of animal stories. The Elk and the Ass gave me a lot of inspiration for this unit, and was also a very interesting story.
Story Title: The Elk and the Ass

Book Title: The Tooti Nameh or Tales of a Parrot

Author: Ziya’al-Din Nakhshabi

Year: 1801

Storybook Topic: Grimm Tales

Comments: I have always had a draw to many of the Grimm Fairy tales. The brothers Grimm leave a lot of room for creativity in their stories, and are all really good reads.

Possible Stories: There are many different stories written by the Grimm Brothers that I have interest in. There is also a very wide range of topics within those stories.

Sample Story: Although I have read many of the Grimm stories before, the one I read this time was Snow-White. A story I am sure many of you already have read before. It is a great story and I really enjoy the way it is written.
Story Title: Snow-White

Book Title: Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm

Author: Lucy Crane

Year: 1886

Storybook Topic: Stories About Heroes

Comments: There are many stories of our past that are told about superheroes, or just normal everyday heroes. I think it would be a lot of fun to make up some stories about people who saved the day.

Possible Stories: In the UnTextbook, I ran across multiple units with stories of heroes. One unit I read a little more into was Ballads of Robin Hood. Robin Hood wasn’t your average hero, but I believe he is still categorized as a hero.

Sample Story: The story I read was called The Golden Arrow.  I really thoroughly enjoyed this story and thought it was a very good one demonstrating Robin Hood’s heroics.
Story Title: The Golden Arrow

Book Title: The English and Scottish Popular Ballads

Author: Francis James Child

Year: 1882-1898

Storytelling Week 2: Kentigern and the Robin

There once was a student named Kentigern. Kentigern was raised in a family of twenty children and lived with an old lady in a shoe. He was the youngest child in the family and was always picked on as a child. I believe this was the root of his evil. 

Robin

 

 

He was always a troublemaker and school, and was always trying to bring all of the other students down. He would tease them and call them names, as well as play many pranks on them to try and get them into trouble. For one week each year, a certain student is responsible for keeping the fire going in the school all night long. They must check the fire at midnight and is a very big responsibility. Kentigern will go out after midnight and put out the fire so that the other kids get in trouble. The teacher, Saint Servan, knew that most of the mischief in the classroom was due to Kentigern. It seemed that he was in time out, more often than he was actually in the classroom. A big essay was due soon, and so every student had to present in front of the class. Kentigern single handedly tried to sabotage the whole classes presentations by throwing away their essays. After this horrible prank, Saint Servan said he would give him one more chance to act right, or else he may never be able to come back to that school again. So once again Kentigern came up with another devious plot. He found a robin that was owned by a neighborhood man. He knew he could get one of the students in trouble if he killed the bird and blamed it on them. So he did just that. Saint Servan saw what had happened and went to the student who allegedly had killed the bird, and asked him to prove that he hadn’t done it. In order to prove that it wasn’t him, he made the bird come back to life. Kentigern could not believe it. How could any student have the power to bring back an animal from the dead? This event had such a big effect on the way Kentigern that it changed who he was on the inside. He then pledged that from now on, he would always try to make people happier in life, instead of trying to make them unhappy.  Kentigern and the class of students lived happily ever after.

Author's Note: I basically reversed the roles in the original story. So instead of Kentigern being a good student, he is a trouble maker. I also changed some various aspects to the story as well. Here is a link into which the story was derived: Kentigern and the Robin.   This story is part of the Saints and Animals unit. Story source: The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts by Abbie Farwell Brown (1900).

Reading Diary A: Saints and Animals

Saint Kentigern and the Robin: Kentigern was a very good student, and because of that, all of the other students tried to constantly bring him down. All of the other students attempted to put out the fire that Kentigern was supposed to keep going. They successfully put it out, but Kentigern was wittier than that, and he got the fire started right back up. The schoolboys next act of debauchery then tried killing a robin, and blaming it on Kentigern. When they did it, somehow Kentigern brought it back to life. I really like Kentigern in this story because he shows perseverance.

Saint Blaise and His Beasts: Saint Blaise loved all animals. He studied medicine so he could help all living things. He learned to tame all of the animals because he was kind to them and healed them when they were hurt. A wolf stole a pig, and Blaise told the wolf to give the pig back, the wolf obliged. I really like this story because of all the animals in it. It is cool to see how Saint Blaise treated everyone, including humans and animals.

 Saint Comgall and the Mice: Comgall is an Irish word that means “the goodly pledge”.  This story is about a group of people trying to call some swans in, but they won’t come because they are strangers. Comgall knows this. When he went to call them, they came. Comgall then called mice to eat all of the prince’s grain, because the prince would not feed his people during a time of famine. This story was probably my least favorite of these so far.

The Wonders of Saint Berach: Saint Verach was a person who liked cows very much. He one-day saw a wolf that was about to eat a cow. He called the wolf over and the cow over. He told the wolf that the cow was now his mom. Again this is another story about a man who loved animals and controlled them. All of these stories seem very similar to me.

Saint Kentigern / Mungo