Extra Reading: Robin Hood

I decided to do an extra reading this week instead of writing an essay. I chose the Robin Hood unit because I can remember hearing stories or watching Robin Hood when I was young. Reading this unit was a little bit of a challenge as I thought reading the stories in ballad form was actually tougher than I thought. I did manage to find a few favorites during my reading and I convey them below.

Robin Hood on the cover of a comic (Wikipedia).

Little John

This was an amusing little ballad. I thought it was entertaining to hear they called him Little John even though he stood near seven feet tall and could obviously fight very well. I also liked that even though their small battle did seem to be very vicious it ended up being all in good fun. At the end of the fight, Robin Hood's band of merry men are called upon and act to avenge their leader's loss. Instead of this, Robin Hood offer's to take in Little John and teach him the way of his band of men within the forest.

The Ranger

This story is a lot like the story of Little John. The ranger confronts Robin Hood and tells him that he is in charge of the forest and Robin Hood disagrees saying that he reigns supreme in the forest. Once again, Robin Hood battles his foe for a long period of time. When the battle is over, it seems like the two have battled to a draw. Once again, Robin Hood invites the ranger to join his band of merry men and they feast and drink all night to celebrate their new member.

Storytelling Week 11-The Putter Excalibur

One day, a professional golfer was walking down the fairway with his caddie. The young professional had just given up a huge lead on the last day of the tournament due to his terrible putting on the greens. After their round, the golfer and the caddie sat at the bar in the clubhouse.

"I just can't seem to make putts!" exclaimed the golfer. "I'm getting close but none fall in the hole."

"What you need is a new putter. I bet you could find a great one in the pro shop on the other side of the clubhouse," reasoned the caddie.

With that, the golfer and the caddie found the pro shop and searched for some time for a new putter. There were putters of all shapes and sizes. Long ones, short ones, silver ones, gold ones. Even with all the variety, there wasn't a putter that seemed to fit. Just when they were going to give up a hope, a dull glow came from behind a pile of old, discarded golf clubs. The golfer reached behind the pile and pulled out an old, gold putter that seemed to come from the 1950s. Along the head of the putter were engraved the name "EXCALIBUR".

Although it was old, it was the only putter that seemed to feel comfortable in the hands of the young golfer. Even though it felt comfortable, the caddie and golfer were unsure of how it would perform in an actual tournament round. The golfer would try it out at the next week which just so happened to be the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia. It was the first major tournament of the year and the first year professional wanted to prove to the rest of the tour that he belonged.

The putter lived up to its mysterious appearance as he putted exceptional all week long. He was tied for the lead with one hole to play and had a 30 foot putt that would give him the victory if he could sink it. As he lined up the putt and stood over the ball his eyes rested on the engraved words in the dull golden head of the putter: "EXCALIBUR". With that, he pulled the club back and putted the ball with a smooth stroke. The putt curled and seemed to stop right on the edge of the hole before it fell! He had won the tournament and found a weapon he could rely on the rest of his career.

"Excalibur" the putter (Wikipedia).

Author's Note: The inspiration from this story came from The Sword Excalibur found in King Arthur: Tales of  the Round Table written by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H.J. Ford (1902). In the original story, King Arthur is without a sword as he rides along with Merlin the wizard. They come upon a lake with an arm rising out of the middle of the water holding a magnificent sword. The Lady of the Lake appears and agrees to let King Arthur have the sword if he will give her a gift when she asks. He agrees and rows out to the sword and retrieves it. I decided to change the story to a professional golfer needing a new putter to fix his struggles. I thought it would be amusing to keep the name of the "weapon" as Excalibur and have it be somewhat magical. I did this because the Masters golf tournament starts next week and a commercial came on as I was thinking of plots for the story. I am a big golf fan so I hopefully did not use to many words that are not known if you are not familiar with golf. I tried to keep the use of sports specific terminology to a minimum.

Reading Diary B: King Arthur

I finished reading the second half of the King Arthur unit for this reading diary. The story shifted from being all about King Arthur and his adventures to various Knights of his. Most of the stories revolved around the Knights' quest for the Holy Grail. I kept some notes on my favorites below.

The Adventure of Sir Percivale

I think Sir Percivale may be my favorite character so far within the King Arthur unit. He seems to have good morals and fights for others throughout this story. He first rides to confront a Knight that has stolen a great steed of a yeoman. He rode hard and fast on a horse not suitable for battle but was ultimately beaten by the Knight and could not catch him. Then, at the end of the story, he joins a battle with a great serpent and a lion. He decided to help the lion because he thought him to be the more "natural beast". It was amusing that the lion took fancy of him and acted like a regular housecat thereafter and even slept with Percivale.

The End of Arthur

I liked this because it wrapped up the entire story in a way that wasn't to crazy or hard to understand. Merlin's vision of King Arthur dying a noble death on the battlefield came true and it was neat to see a little passage from the beginning of the unit come back and come true. Also, the fact that when King Arthur had the Knight throw Excalibur back into the water that the hand (I presume the same one from which he took it from in the first place) shot out of the water to take it back beneath the surface was a very cool visual.

King Arthur retrieving Excalibur from the hand in the water (Wikipedia Commons).

Reading Diary A: King Arthur

I decided to read the unit of King Arthur for my reading for Week 11. I like to read stories of heroes and things like that (and am currently watching Game of Thrones) so it was an easy choice for me to read this unit. I kept track of what were my favorite stories and they are found below.

The Drawing of the Sword

This was fun to read because I can remember me loving this story when I was a young boy. To hear the more detailed background behind it made the story very interesting. The part where Sir Ector describes never knowing who Arthur's father was but that Merlin told him one day he would discover from who Arthur came was the best part for me. It showed background of the story without having to delve off into its own individual story to tell it.

The Sword Excalibur

I really am enjoying this unit so far because I am learning so much background behind movies and stories I read as a child. I liked the thought of a hero having to complete a task (such as pulling the sword from stone) or giving up something in return for a mighty treasure as in this story.

Excalibur (Wikipedia)

The King's Pilgrimage

This story was almost like some weird science fiction movie. It was creative to have the squire dream the dream and have all these spooky things happen to him only to awake and see that they had indeed occurred. I've thought of writing a spooky storytelling post so maybe this could be the inspiration for it.

Extra Reading: Blackfoot Unit

I decided to read the Blackfoot unit this week for an extra reading instead of writing an essay. I picked this unit specifically because I wanted to read some legend type stories and I think I picked a pretty good unit to do so.

The Wolf Man

This story reminded me of the old tale about a baby being brought up by wolves. I thought at first that it would possibly be a scary story about how the werewolf came to be or something like that but was pleasantly surprised. I also liked how the village did not end up punishing the man-wolf and ended up punishing his two wives for trying to frame his murder.

The Buffalo Stone

I can picture writing a storytelling post about this but instead of a buffalo stone using it as maybe a heads up penny you find lying on the ground that is supposed to bring you good luck. I can also picture this story being told to the young children among the Blackfoot when they first ask why the family is so happy to find a Buffalo Stone. I was really interested in the process of finding the Buffalo Stone. It was alluring to find out that if the Blackfoot hear a bird's chip they know that a Buffalo Stone is close by.

The Rolling Rock

This story made me laugh because I could picture an old man running for his life as a large boulder rolled down a hill after him. It reminded me of some cartoon you would find that included Bugs Bunny or other Looney Tunes character.

"Balanced Rock" found in the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, Colorado (Wikipedia).

Week 10 Storytelling-The Great Lion

Once there lived an old frail man who lived on the edges of the jungle. This old man had no way to feed himself as he was so weak. The other men in the village provided him with a portion of their catch from the hunting done that day so that he would survive. This happened every day for some time. The old man continued to become weaker and weaker as the days passed but still the villagers helped as he was the wisest soul amongst the village.

One day, after the hunting had been completed, a young villager knocked on the old man's door. As he opened the door he could see that the young hunter was bringing more than his day's meal. Laying by the hunter's side was a lion cub that could only be a few weeks old. The boy explained that he thought the old man could use some company as he knew that he lived alone. The old man graciously accepted the boy's gift and thanked him.

The young lion cub (Wikipedia Commons).

As time passed, the lion got bigger and stronger. It got larger and larger until it was bigger than any lion the villagers had ever seen. It assisted the hunters of the village in their daily hunts and routinely brought back more and more meat than the village had ever seen at one time. Even with the lion's contributions, there were rumblings among many villagers that he was getting too big and that he would one day turn on them and kill the village in its entirety.

The worries reached a peak as one night a group of villagers decided to wait till the lion fell asleep for the night and sneak up and kill him. As the men crept through the trees to stalk the lion they heard a mighty roar from behind. As they turned to run, a monster larger and scarier than they could imagine emerged from the jungle and gave chase.

The ruckus wakened the sleeping lion of the village with a startle. With heightened senses, the lion ran to the noises with tremendous power. The cries and screams mixed with the cracking of giant trees led the lion to garner even more power as he flew across the jungle floor.

When he arrived at the scene, he saw what was causing the fear throughout the village. With reckless abandon for his own safety, the lion attacked the ferocious monster with all he had. As the lion and monster stayed locked in bloodshed the group that led the ambush of the lion knew they had made a terrible mistake. Not only would the lion never have harmed them, he would give up his life to protect them.

This thought propelled the villagers to cast aside their fears and pick up their weapons and join in the fight. After countless time had passed, the villagers and their giant lion were victorious and they set about rebuilding their village with a renewed sense of pride and confidence.

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Author's Note: This story was adapted from The Woman Who Had a Bear as a Foster-Son found in Eskimo Folk-Tales by Knud Rusmussen with illustrations by native Eskimo artists (1921). In the original story, an old woman receives a bear cub as a gift. She raises the cub as her own as it gets larger and stronger. Eventually, the bear becomes to strong for even the adults in the village to play with. The bear begins to hunt with the village but members of other villagers begin to try and kill the bear when they see him out hunting. One night, the bear brings home a body of  dead man and the old woman must tell the bear to leave the village or else other villages would come and do them all great harm. I decided to use a lion from the jungle as the main character mostly just to give a change of scenery. I also added the part where the villagers became scared of the lion because I feel like if I was in the situation I would have a legitimate fear of a giant lion. I also added the happy ending of the lion fending off a great foe to the village because I had expected that to be the ending of the original and feel like it is a better ending then the lion being exiled from the village.

Reading Diary B: Eskimo Folk-Tales

Today I finished up the second half of the Eskimo Folk-Tale unit reading. I tried to focus my reading diary post on stories I could see myself writing a storytelling post about. Below I have written my favorite stories I read and the corresponding notes I took.

Papik, Who Killed His Wife's Brother

This read like something from a horror movie for me. There was plenty of blood, guts, and gore to go around throughout the story. I found it a little odd that this was a story told by fathers to their children to warn them of killing their fellow man, although, I'm sure it was very effective. The most interesting part of the story was that the men who finally killed the monster could tell it was the old woman's coverlet as the skin and the bones were that of a human. I haven't tried to incorporate a horror story into my writing yet so this could be a story to try.

Atdlarneq, The Great Glutton

This story was entertaining from the beginning as it described the villain or main antagonist of the story is a large man with copper cheeks. Also, it was funny that the punishment or obstacle to be overcome for Atdlarneq was that he must eat and eat until he was about to explode. I could possibly change this story around to make the main antagonist have a different part of his body to golden such as his fists or arms and have Atdlarneq compete in a different competition.

A feast for Atdlarneq (Wikipedia).