Mythology Blog Fall 2019

The Wendigo For my last assignment, I chose to watch the last set of crash course videos on the list. I really enjoyed watching these videos throughout the semester and wanted to finish it off with them. This set of videos was really neat. The guy went kinda philosophical when he started talking about what it means to be a monster. I was really shook with the Wendigo story. I had heard of them before but didn't know much about them. Learning how they come to existence from humans was pretty creepy and I think it was the best example at representing how monsters are like just humans personified as evil creatures based on their deeds or nature. I also really enjoyed the dragon video. I like how it talked about the differences between eastern and western cultures in regards to how they view dragons. I had gotten a sense for the differences growing up and watching cartoons. All the Asian based cartoons like Dragon Ball Z and Avatar the Last Airbender (if you consider it Asian-b...

Satan, frozen in Hell For today I continued reading Dante's Inferno. I continued to struggle to understand parts of what I was reading so I went online to search for some explanation videos. After that, I tried reading it and it made more sense but it's still a strange book. I like the idea of how he travels down the different levels and matches the punishments to the sins. In one of the videos, I saw they talked about how Dante was Italian and therefore really hated the greeks and that's why there are so many greek people in Hell and I thought that was funny. How Dante was so petty he wrote a book where he punished them lol. Anyways, it was really cool to see how Dante mixed religion with mythology. I wasn't expecting to see all the mythological creatures in this book but it worked out really well. The order of Hell is interesting, as well as how Dante classified sins from least to most sinful. I have no idea what I'm going to write about for my story this ...

Map of Dante’s Inferno I had a hard time understanding today’s reading. I have never read it before and I know it’s a really popular book so I decided to try it. I can follow along most of what is being said, but there were a lot of parts where Virgil is explaining stuff to Dante that I didn’t get. I think it’s really cool how they go from level to level and see all the different people that have been condemned to Hell. I wasn’t expecting to see the philosophers and poets there but it makes sense why they’re there. Today’s reading: Dante's Divine Comedy , translated by Tony Kline (2002).

Tlaloc In this week's videos, they talked about a lot of different flood myths from all over the world. I had heard they flood myth from the Bible, but all the other ones were new to me. I thought they were really interesting. I could see a lot of similarities between all of them which is wild especially when they come from different continents. I really like the American ones about the Aztec, Inca, and Maya. Even though I did a lot of research on Aztec mythology I had not read the one about the flood. Maybe if I had I could have used it in my storybook. Link to videos:  http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2017/12/crash-course-myth-flood-stories.html

Jewels Once there was a lady that was very ugly, in spirit and appearance, that gave birth to a pair of twins both girls. Their father had passed away during the girl's second year of life and the mother had to raise both by herself. As they grew older, one of the girls, Evelyn, became the spitting image of her mom, and the other, Flor, became the spitting image of her father. Unfortunately for Evelyn, this meant that she developed the same ugly character that her mother possessed. Flor grew to be a very beautiful and charming child just like her father. Because of this both her mother and Evelyn grew to be very envious of Flor and treated her poorly. Her mother instructed her to do all the household chores while Evelyn got to go hang out with her friends. One day while Flor was mowing the lawn her mother told her to take out the trash immediately. She grabbed the trash bags and took them down the street to the local garbage bin where she met an old lady asking for chang...

Medio Pollito. Image source For today's reading, I accidentally read the first part of Lang's Fairy tales II instead of reading the second part of Lang's Fairy tales I. These were interesting I had never heard of any of them so it was a lot of learning. I thought the one about the half chicken was kinda funny. The plot was a bit mean but I guess that's life. The story about clever maria really confused me I didn't get much of what was going on in that one. The one about the seven-headed serpent was kinda boring since it was basically all like background info, hardly any action took place. The one about the girl spitting diamonds from her mouth was also boring to me. All in all other than the chicken one I wasn't really interested in these stories. Story source: The Green Fairy Book by Andrew Lang, illustrated by H. J. Ford (1892).

A shower curtain of what I imagine Kiza would look like.  For this weeks readings I read Lang’s European Fairy tales. I chose to read them because I wanted to read the story about “puss in boots.” It was nothing like I expected it definitely did not have the same plot as the puss in boots movies I watched. But I really liked how the cat helped get his master rich. It made me really curious to find out what would happen when the king and princess find out that they were lying the whole time. That story was followed by the dirty shepardess one I think, which was super similar to a previous story I had read although I don’t remember the title right now. It had the same “salt” predicament followed by the prince almost dying because he would only be happy by marrying the princess. In the end they married and the daughter pulls the salt trick on her dad to prove what she meant by her original statement. Then was the story about Kiza the cat which I really liked as well. That st...

Soccer ball There once was a man by the nickname of "Z" from the country of Jordan. As a child, his life revolved around the game of soccer. Every day after school he would go to the park with his friends where they would practice for hours on end. He joined a club and excelled at the game. As he got older his games got more and more serious and he believed he could make a career out of his passion playing soccer professionally. His dreams were coming to reality when he was offered a scholarship to play for a small university in the small state of Oklahoma. This was exactly what he had been waiting for. An opportunity to get out and prove to the world that he had what it takes to be one of the greats. Unfortunately, one day during a tense game, Z suffered a grave injury. It resulted in a broken leg and shattered dreams. It took too long to heal and when it finally did, he just wasn't the same. Z knew that his chances were gone and he stopped playing soccer. H...

A duck The story that I really liked was the one about king O’Toole and his goose. I thought it was a nice little story and was pretty wholesome. The king only wanted his duck fixed, when he could have fixed himself. But he loved the duck and offered all the land he had left to fix it. What a guy. Bibliography:  Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs, with illustrations by John D. Batten (1892).

The raspberries the brothers were picking. Today’s reading were pretty fun. I’m sure they kid stories but they were pretty cool. The two I liked the best was the one about the brothers and the one that was like Snow White. The one about the two brothers was fun because of how it just keeps building and building on top of each other. It seems like a really easy way to make a long story. The other one was also sort of like that because each time she tried to kill her daughter something else happened. I was really confused as to why she wanted to eat the daughters liver though. I get that she wanted to kill her so I’m sure ripping her heart out would do the trick but then to eat her daughters heart and liver is to much. Why did she wanna kill her daughter to being with like its her kid and she’s jealous of her for being prettier. Makes no sense to me man. Bibliography: Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs, with illustrations by John D. Batten (1892).

Mouse and Cat There once was a mouse That went back home to his house And to his surprise he saw a big cat Sleeping What are you doing feline, feline What are you doing feline? This is my new house She turned and saw the small mouse And I do not appreciate you rats! Get out of here you rat, you rat Get out of here you rat But I lived here first So it’s you that must disperse Get out of my home you smelly old cat Leave and never come back, come back Leave and never come back! But I have a thirst Would you bring me water first I promise that I will leave after that I promise I’ll never come back, come back I promise I’ll never come back You I will believe If you say that you will leave You better not play any tricks today Once she’s gone I will play, will play Once she’s gone I will play But I have conceived A plan for the rat to leave Said the mean cat while the rat was away I will eat him today, today I will eat him today Here is your w...

A cute little kitten playing with a mouse . For this weeks readings I chose the English fairy Tales. They were pretty fun to read, the one about the cat and the mouse was funny and I wasn’t expecting the cat to eat the mouse lmao. When he would call her my lady I assumed there was some weird relationship going on but I guess not. The one about Cap o’ Rushes was really good as well. I liked how it started and it reminded me some of Cinderella. The plot was that she leaves, finds a house to work in, goes to dances disguised, makes her master’s son fall in love with her, then she marries him, invites her dad to the wedding and there he finds out how much she loved him even though her told her to leave and never come back. It was a nice story with a lot of details. Story source: English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1890).

I use Wikipedia quite frequently. Whenever I'm studying something and I don't understand it, oftentimes I'll search it on Wikipedia to see if it will help shed some light on my confusion. I also use it a lot when I am writing papers to search for good sources. I did not have a Wikipedia account, nor did I think I would ever have one. I'm too scared to edit stuff on Wikipedia. Maybe after I get my Ph.D. I'll have a little more confidence and try to edit articles that talk about stuff I'm familiar with, but until then I don't think I'll be doing much editing. I don't know which features I'll use, maybe when I get into grad school I'll start following certain posts? I have changed the layout though. I chose the timeless layout because I thought it looked really good.

Image Source Loki and his kids seem so powerful, I wish they would have been included in the movies. For this week's extra credit reading I watched the Creation and Destruction videos. As always, they were really entertaining and very informative. They mention the cyclical nature of creation and destruction since most of these doomsday myths often end with the creation of a new world. This I'm pretty familiar with since the Aztec creation legend has the Earth become destroyed and recreated several times. However, I do not know if the Aztec have an apocalypse story. That might be something interesting to look into. Actually, that might be a great idea. This is just me writing out my thoughts but for my storybook project, I could try to search for an Aztec apocalypse. And then essentially I'll just find a way to have Quetzalcoatl destroy the world except for like Huitzilli and his family and the people of Tollan. In the Aztec stories several of the Gods have caused...

Oak Tree In the beginning, there was nothing but darkness. Over time this darkness grew and accumulated, and the spirit of the Earth Doctor floated over this darkness like a piece of spiders web in the wind. Noticing how lonesome he was, he began to weep. As his teardrops fell and hit the darkness, they began to form a small pond. After noticing the pond, the Earth doctor ceased his weeping. He came close to the pond to examine his creation. In it, he saw his reflection for the first time. He saw his rich brown skin, deep brown eyes, and long black hair. He took a piece of his hair and let fall into the pond. Out sprouted a big healthy oak tree, but with nothing to keep the tree in place, it kept falling over. The Earth Doctor then scooped up some of the darkness and mixed it with some water from the pond and some of the leaves of the oak tree and squeezed it, and molded it between his hands. In his hands, he had a small ball of dirt. He blew on it, and it dispersed and cover...

Coyote Today's stories focused a lot on the coyote. I feel like in the past when I've read coyote stories, the coyote is always swift and cunning. However, in these stories, he's pretty dumb. He gets tricked by almost all the other animals and always ends up as the loser. They all must have really hated coyotes lol. I don't have much to write about, I liked yesterday's creation story much more. Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest by Katharine Berry Judson (1912)

The Sun and Moon From today's readings, I really like the one about the creation of the world from the Pima people. The part that really caught my attention, for whatever reason, was the part where he made the sun and the moon. I thought it was a bit strange to see the sun being made from a ball of ice, but I can see how that would make sense. I also liked how they got the sun and moon into the sky. The part where it keeps falling down was a little funny but it was clever how it finally settled in the east. Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest by Katharine Berry Judson (1912)

Cipatli , the monster whose body created the earth according to the Nahuatl legend.  This weeks videos were over creation myths which is pretty cool since one of the main parts of my storybook project includes the Nahuatl Creation Myth. These videos went into detail over some of the similarities between the two groups of creation stories which were voids vs dualities? I think that’s how to describe them. Anyways, I saw a lot of smilarities between them and the Nahuatl creation story even though mine was not mentioned in the videos. A big common concept is the creation of the world or earth from the body of a god or higher being. Which my story has. The later videos went into detail about how the creation myths might be a way to enforce or make common the role of a man onto a women. Which kind of confused me. In earlier videos, I believe the pantheons one, he talked a lot about matriarchal pantheons. But in this video series he did not talk about them which i was kind of expe...

Today i am going to look more in depth into the story of Quetzalcoatl in order to find as many details of his legend as possible. This source has a lot of details of when he was deceived:  http://neomexicanismos.com/mexico-prehispanico/leyenda-de-quetzalcoatl-biografia-serpiente-emplumada-maya-azteca-mito/ This source has a good summary of events:  https://www.inside-mexico.com/la-leyenda-de-quetzalcoatl/3/ I’ve read a handful of other stories but they talk about different origin stories for Quetzalcoatl. Some of them are similar to that of Jesus lowkey and say that he was born to a virgin mother. Which is interesting because earlier in the semester when i was doing my initial research I read some articles that mentioned that the Mormons believe quetzalcoatl to be Jesus Christ. This stuff gets crazy, but I already have my origin story so I’m not going to change it. The two sources I have I think are good enough to make the 2nd part of my project. I did not find good im...

Portrait of an Inuit family.  Image source Today's stories were really dark but they were really interesting. The first few ones, I think three, we're talking about what happens to you when you kill someone or lie. They were really gruesome and one of them had some imagery that was pretty explicit. The rest of the stories after that were somewhat different. These stories didn’t appeal to me as much, but I was a fan of the first three. Source:  Eskimo Folk-Tales  by Knud Rasmussen with illustrations by native Eskimo artists (1921).