Essay Week 11: More Celtic Fairy Tales

This week I read the unit MoreCeltic Fairy Tales. I first tried to read Celtic Tales. I started on the first story but they way the story was written I could not understand what was going on. I decided to try More Celtic Fairy Tales because I really wanted to hear about some Celtic stories. I didn’t really think about how they are written might be tough for me to read. There were a couple of stories that were hard for me to understand and follow what was going on. How Cormac Mac Art went toFaery was a story were the type of writing left me confused. One story that the ending completely confused me was The Farmer of Liddesdale. The ending did not really explain much. The last paragraph really confused me. I was left with one big question and that was “who was the ploughman?” I also was asking myself, how did he just disappear? Why the mist? I reread that ending paragraph multiple times and I was always left with the same questions. There were some really good stories as well. I liked The Fate of the Children of Lir, The Vision of MacConglinney, The Story of the McAndrew Family, and The Ridere of Riddles. These stories took up the majority of this unit because they are the bigger stories. These stories were very interesting and I had not read any of these stories before. My favorite was The Ridere of Riddles. I liked how the boys in this story are clever and think on their feet quickly. The Vision of MacConglinney was a little hard for me to follow but I was able to follow it decently. I liked that this story was different that all of the other stories I have read this year. I thought this was a good unit but there are a few tough stories to get through. 

 More Celtic Fairy Tales. 

Web Source: UN-Textbook

Storytelling Week 11: Two Brothers and a Mean Queen

There was once this boy, a prince actually, named Tom. Tom lived in a grand castle. His life was great until his mother past away. He and his father grieved for a while. Being the king, his father had to have a queen. He found a new wife easily.  Tom was happy to have a new mom. She loved him just like her own son. Soon after the weeding the new queen had a son with the king.  Tom loved his brother, Bob, and could not have been happier. He promised to always protect and be there for his brother. The brothers grew up side by side and were always playing. 

One day, the queen realized that her son would not be the next king but instead Tom would be the king. She became jealous of Tom. She started treating him badly and paying him no attention. The day finally came where the queen could no longer take the fact that her son would not be the king. She started thinking of ways to change this outcome. Many ideas crossed her mind but she decided she would poison Tom. If Tom was dead then Bob would be next in line to become king. She told the cooks to put a small amount of poison in Tom’s drink. Bob overheard his mom and the cook talking. He ran to Tom and told him his mom’s plan. Tom took the advice and did not drink his drink at dinner. He instead poured it out. 

The next day, the queen thought for sure that Tom would not wake up. About that time Tom and Bob showed up for breakfast. The queen did not understand how tom was still alive. She went to the cook and confronted him. The cook said maybe since the poison was only a small amount the poison had no effect on Tom. The queen told the cook to put a higher dose of poison in Tom’s drink. Bob overheard this conversation as well. He ran to Tom again and warned him. This time Tom kept the drink but did not drink the drink. Tom knew that the queen would stop at nothing to get him out of the way. He went to Bob and told him that he was going to run away. Bob said he wanted to go but Tom told him he should stay. After a lot of convincing, Tom allowed Bob to join him and they both ran away together. 

 The Two Boys Grown Up

Web Source: UN-Textbook

Author's Note: This story is from The Ridere of Riddles in the More Celtic Fairy Tales unit in the UN-Textbook. This is basically just the beginning of the story. I kept the main parts of the story the same. Like the queen trying to kill him and her being his step-mom. I did add in the names and her thinking of ideas to kill him. In the original story, we do not know the names and the queen just decides poison. I also added in the part of Tom telling Bob to stay. In the original story, the two boys just run away.   

Bibliography: More Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs. Web Source: UN-Textbook

Reading Diary Week 11: More Celtic Stories

More Celtic Fairy Tales
The Fate of the Children of Lir: Lir though he would be named all mighty king but he wasn’t. He went home mad and to console him the all mighty king sent him 3 maidens to choice from to be his wife. He chose the oldest and they had two sets of twins then she died. Lir married his dead wifes sister and she became jealous of the children. She turned them to swans.

The Fate of the Children of Lir(cont.): Lir found the swans and went to Dearg (all mighty king) to have him punish his wife. Dearg turned her into an air-demon. The swans left the lake.

The Fate of the Children of Lir(end): The swans eventually turned back to human but they died shortly after.

The Vision of MacConglinney: MacConglinney sets out to help a king with his over eating. He makes the king fast with him overnight.

 The Vision of MacConglinney (cont.): Mac had a vision of this place made out of food. This vision he told to the king while taunting him with food. Finally the beast inside the king sprang forth and left the king. Mac was rewarded greatly.

Dream of Owen O'Mulready: Owen wished to have a dream. Owen took his masters orders on how to dream and finally had a dream.

The Story of the McAndrew Family: There are 7 brothers that are really stupid. Their father died and they got his fortune. Everyone knows how stupid they are so they get tricked all the time for their money. 

The Story of the McAndrew Family(cont.): They were tricked so much that they lost all of their fortune and had to start begging. 



The Farmer of Liddesdale: A farmer lost his wife and his children. Then a little while later he lost his ploughman. He made a deal with a new ploughman. The deal was the ploughmn could have as much as he could carry in one burden-withe. The farmer had a great yield and it turned out that almost all the corn would fit in the burden-withe. The farmer would be ruined. But he said a little chant like thing and the burden-withe broke and the ploughman disappeared.

The Legend of Knockgrafton: There was once a hunchback, Lusmore, who was great at making hats. He met some fairies and they made his hunch disappear. This changed his life and he became the gossip of the town. 

The Legend of Knockgrafton (cont.):A lady came to Lusmore to see how he got his lump removed. He told her and she took her son who had a lump to the same spot under the moat. He did a terrible job adding to the song of the fairies and they got mad. They put Lusmores lump on him so now he had two lumps. He died on the way back home. 

Elidore: Eli was a bad learner. So he ran away and found some little people. He played with them for a while then he missed his mom. He would go back and forth for a while till he tried to take a little persons ball home with him. They followed him and took it back but Eli could never find them again. 

How Cormac Mac Art went to Faery: Cormac traded his wife and children for a fairy branch. A year later he went after them. He saw some weird sights but the main fairy had him tell the truth and gave back his family. 

The Ridere of Riddles: Two brothers left home after the youngest brothers mom tried to kill the oldest. They took the poison with them and it killed two horses which killed twelve ravens which killed 24 men. They used this as a riddle to with the Knight of Riddles daughter.

The Ridere of Riddles (cont.):The knight of Riddles could not solve it and the oldest brother married the daughter.
 

Essay Week 10: Blackfoot Stories

This week I real the Blackfoot Stories by Grinnell. This story came from the Native American section of the UN-Textbook. This unit had a variety of stories within it. There were many single page stories but ended with a five page story. I thought this was a well put together unit. The variety kept the reading interesting and that made reading the unit easier. Some of the individual stories were short, about 300-600 words, compared to the average story which is about 1000 words. While I was reading the section I thought this was great. The shorter the reading the less time the reading takes. Now when I look back the stories, I am starting to wonder what was left out of the stories to make them so short. More details could be added to those stories to help expand the story. I did not think any of the stories were bad this week. There was not a single story that is my least favorite. I did however really like the Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy story. I think I have said this before but I like the stories that take up multiple pages in the unit. I think the extra length helps with the detail and excites me as a reader. When there are short story after short story, they seem to drag on and make reading the unit a lot harder. I also like the hero stories. Kut-O-Yis is just that. He is not your normal hero though. He just goes around and helps people who are suffering. I did not find anything missing in this unit. I did find a problem in one of the stories that I informed our teacher on and she has now fixed it.  Overall, I thought this was another great unit and I do not see any changes that should be made now. 

Blackfoot Indian Stories 

Web Source: UN-Textbook

Storytelling Week 10: Kut-O-Yis

There was once this village that was run by a man. He took over the village when he married his father-in-law’s daughters. The father-in-law knew that it was his time to give up his position. So he happily gave the position to his new son. The son took care of his new parents for a while. He eventually got tired of taking care of them and started mistreating them. He made his father-in-law help him hunt but would not give him any meat to eat. The father-in-law was able to sneak a blood clot of a buffalo one day and rushed home. By the time he got home a baby boy had formed from the clot. They named the boy Kut-O-Yis. Kut-O-Yis grew very quickly and was a man within a few days. He noticed that his parents did not have much food to eat. This upset him because he saw that the son-in-law had plenty of food. The next day Kut-O-Yis took his father to hunt. The son-in-law showed up and was angry with his father-in-law. They had a battle but neither could win so the father-in-law called to Kut-O-Yis for help. Kut-O-Yis did come to help and killed the son-in-law for the mistreatment of his parents. Kut-O-Yis also punished his sisters for not helping their parents. He did take it easy on the youngest though because she did give a little meat here and there. 

Kut-O-Yis knew that he had a great gift. He was strong and smart. He decided he wanted to go and help other people that were being mistreated. He was told of a village not far from his own. He traveled there and saw a beautiful lodge in the middle of the village. Instead of going to that lodge, he went to a smaller not so nice lodge. Some old women welcomed him and brought him food and water. The food they gave him was some of the worst meat you could have off of the buffalo. He asked the elderly ladies why they did not provide him with better food. They told him because the bear chief that lived in the beautiful lodge took the best meat from the entire village and left everyone with the worst. This infuriated Kut-O-Yis. He decided the next day to kill a big buffalo and hang it up outside the old ladies lodge. Later that day, the bear chief sent his daughter to collect the best meat. When she saw Kut-O-Yis buffalo she knew she had to take it. She walked over and started to take the buffalo down. Kut-O-Yis walked out and smacked her on the head. He told her she could not have the buffalo. She ran home crying to her father. The whole bear family came to destroy Kut-O-Yis for disrespecting the little girl bear. Kut-O-Yis was stronger than the bears and killed the entire family except the little girl bear. Instead, he let her go so she could populate the world with more bears. His smack on her head knocked the knowledge of knowing bears could be chief out of her head so that they could never be leaders of a village again. Kut-O-Yis continued his journey to defeat all things evil. By the end of his journey he defeated 7 evil beings. 

 

Blackfoot Tipis (Lodges) 

Web Source: UN-Textbook

Author’s Note: This story is from the Blackfoot Stories unit in the Native American section of the UN-Textbook. This particular story is based on Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy. I told this story to follow almost exactly how the story is told. I thought the story was so great that I didn’t need to change much. I did however add the part about how Kut-O-Yis’ smack knocked the knowledge out of the bear. In the original story he does hit her on the head and she does get away. He says in the story that he let her go to populate the world with bears. I thought that since bears are not village leaders that it would be a nice touch to say Kut-O-Yis made that happen. 

Bibliography: Blackfoot Stories by Grinnell. Web Source: UN-Textbook