Mythology and Folklore

(Brown Hen Bird from  MaxPixel ) Author's note: For this story I took the story of the crocodile and the hen and rewrote the ending. I found the ending of the original story to be completely underwhelming, with the crocodile accepting the hen remarking him as her brother simply due to the fact that they both laid eggs. For him to stop his pursuit of her after this moral does not seem true to the nature of a crocodile. So to that end, I gave the story an ending I found more appropriate. The Dumb Crocodile One day, there was a crocodile who was sneaking up on a hen. The hen came to feed by the river bank every day, and the crocodile had been watching her. Just as he was about to close his mighty jaws around her, she yelled out, "Oh, brother, don't!" Taken aback by this, the crocodile stopped, and the hen ran away snickering. The crocodile was furious. "How could she possibly outsmart me!?" he yelled out. "I am a beast far above her, I refus...

(American Crocodile from  NPS ) For this part of the reading notes I chose to focus on the story of "Why the Crocodile Does Not Eat the Hen." What I really liked about this story was the strange ending to it. It was not something I saw coming at all. Comparing the crocodile to the hen solely off the fact that they both lay eggs, as well as comparing them to turtles and ducks was a really strange way for it to go. I anticipated that the underlying moral would not be one of family or companionship, but rather one of intelligence. I honestly did not enjoy this ending at all, and would have preferred it to be a case of the Hen outsmarting the Crocodile in order to not get eaten. I think I'll probably rewrite this story and change the ending to fit my own tastes this week. Bibliography: Richard Dennett, Why The Crocodile Does Not Eat The Hen , from  UnTextbook

(Agelenopsis from  Wikipedia ) For this set of reading notes A, I chose to focus in on a specific story, namely the story of Thunder and Anansi. Overall in this story I get a sense of wonder. In general there are lots of fantasy-style elements, which I think tie in well to my own tastes. I have always been a fan of fantasy stories. For example, the idea of a spider forming complex and cognitive thought. The personification of animals has always been a fun idea to play with in stories. Then, a big element of fantasy is that of shape-shifting, like the way Anansi's son turned himself into a fly. Shape-shifting has been used in fantasy tales for generations, such as in the way Loki is able to change his shape in Norse mythology. A final element that I approve of in this story and like using in my own stories is that of a moral. In this story, Anansi learns, in very general terms, to be wise, but also to be generous. If he had shared the food pot with his family in the first pla...