Brynlee's Thoughts on Mythology and Folklore

  Sindbad  by Andrew Lang He awoke with a jolt. Today was the day dad was going to let him help with the valley of diamonds. It is said to be the most beautiful valley of all the lands, especially this disappointingly boring island. The valley is said to have the most elegant diamonds. Diamonds that range in size from a pinky toe nail to a fist. Diamonds that are so shiny you could see yourself in the reflection. He could not wait. His father had even told him if the bird brought back diamonds from his throw, he got to keep it. Can you imagine having that kind of wealth? He ran down stairs to his waiting father. But, he was not as excited for him. His father sat him down and had a stern talk with him. "Son, I know that you are excited, but there are some safety precautions that we have to go over. There are snakes in the valley. They typically hide at night. That is why we go first thing in the morning. So we can put as much distance as possible between us and them by nightfal...

  Sindbad  by Andrew Lang Sindbad had promised himself that he would stay put. But, he began itching to be on the sea again. He set out once more. This time, however, it was a boat that he bought himself. He went and invited all of the merchants he liked. There were many nations represented on that boat. On the next good breeze day, they set out. The wind helped the sails but did not help the motion sickness. The water was very choppy but they made it. The came across this island. It appeared to be uninhibited. The merchants climbed ashore and found a giant egg. The egg was bigger than the merchants were tall. But, that did not stop them from hacking up the bird inside and using it for a meal. Sindbad announced that they should get moving because the parents were sure to show up soon. With screeching behind them, they ran. When their vessel was in sight, they jumped on and were setting sail. Until, they noticed two shadows. Both birds were holding huge rocks. The first launche...

Sindbad  by Andrew Lang  Sindbad had inherited a lot of money. He quickly blew through it on everything imaginable, whether it was a necessary purchase or not. He squandered it recklessly. Soon he realized that he was running out of money. So, he sold his house belongings and set sail. He was aboard a ship to live the merchants life, selling items along the coast. One night, the boat had pulled up on a shore. They were all ready to be on the island and off the boat. So, they lit a fire. The fire awoke the creature beneath them, for it was not an island but a sleeping whale. The whale responded to the heat negatively and dove straight to the bottom of the ocean. Many jumped overboard to avoid the painful death. But, Sindbad grabbed a piece of wood and held on. He gripped the wood all throughout the night and ended up on an island. After regaining his strength and full consciousness, he went in search of food. There he met an old man. The man said that he was there on a task fro...

  The Green Jewel by Donald A Mackenzie "What a boring day" the king thought to himself, "All of this space and I am struggling to find something to entertain me. I have killed all the people in the dungeon and invaded all the nearby countries. How am I supposed to find entertainment now". He flung himself onto the chair to wallow in self pity. He sat there in sadness for an hour, until his chief scribe walked by.  "Oh thank goodness you're here" he exclaimed! "Is something wrong your majesty?" the scribe inquired.  "I am going out of my wits. I am beyond bored in this building. It is a mansion that feels a lot like a prison" the king wailed. "I am sorry to hear that your majesty, but I have a very busy day today" the scribe tried to explain. "Please, I will let you off for the day, if you please please get me out of this castle" the king said. "How about a boat ride?" the scribe suggested. But, this d...

 Osiris by Donald A Mackenzie Ra had ascended to the heavens. He could no longer stand to be on the Earth because of age and of time. But, there was a birth. He was magnificent among the savages. He was wise and brilliant and would do amazing things. Osiris was born in a time of darkness. Many people lived in disarray. They were murdering and living lawlessly. But, he restored order. He created good and binding laws. Then, he taught them how to be a functional society. He, along with his consort Iris, taught them how to survive. Then, he went on to teach other nations. He did not gain followers through conquering, but through justice, peace, and wise teachings. But, his brother, Set, was not happy for his successes. He was jealous and had evil in his heart. While Osiris was gone, he decided to stir a rebellion. He gained up to 70 followers. Upon the return of Osiris, they threw a feast. Set arrived with a golden chest that were the king's exact dimensions. After the night and the ...

  The Tale of Two Brothers  by Donald A Mackenzie There once was two brothers. The oldest was Anpu and the youngest was Bata. Bata looked up to his older brother. He thought of him like a father. Anpu was married and owned a home, in which Bata lived with them. He would tend to the crops and the animals. Every morning he would wake and make bread for Anpu and eat his share in the fields. He was content with his life just to be with his brother. One day, as Anpu and Bata were preparing for the flood, he went inside the house to retrieve some seeds. He asked Anpu's wife where they would be. She directed him, because she was doing her hair. As he left, he was struggling a bit. She asked him what was wrong and he said that it was a lot of weight on one's shoulders. She agreed and then preceded to come onto him making comments about how strong he was and how she admired it every day. He rejected her saying that he thought of her as his mother, he could never do that to his brother....

For the main ideas, I want it to be fun. There are centuries worth of stories between the gods and this would be a fun way to explain the goddesses thoughts and points of views. I do not have an overarching theme. 1. Aphrodite      This will be a tale about her love triangle. It is very drama filled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hephaestus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_(mythology) 2. Hera      This will be a tale about her anger towards all of Zeus's mistresses. He was never faithful and that made her look bad so she would strike out against the girls. I think that it would be set in a way that the other goddess's are doing an intervention type of scenario. https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Hera.html https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Zeus.html 3. Persephone     There are many sides to this story. I want the main story to be through her and how she feels about her mother agreeing to her half a year in hell (literally). https://en.wikipedia.org...

Comment Wall for Real Goddesses of Ancient Greece Source:  Flickr  https://sites.google.com/view/rgoag/home

 "What a beautiful day in ocean. The sun is shining and the water feels amazing!" thought Venus. "There is nothing that could ruin the day." But, she thought that a little too soon. Not even five minutes had passed before a messenger came flying at her. The messenger was distraught, which never means it's good news.  "All mighty Venus, there has been an accident." he reported. "What kind of accident? Is Mars okay? Oh, no is it Hephaestus?" she cried. "No, my lady, it is Cupid. He has been in an accident. His shoulder is out of use and he currently cannot fly." he reported. With fear struck deep in her heart, she cried "Whe..Where is my son?"  "He made it to your house before collapsing. Your housemaids are taking care of him now." he reported. Venus had never fled the ocean so quickly. "My Cupid, my favorite son, how could he have gotten himself into this situation", she thought, "I will never forg...

My favorite story was " The Tasks of Psyche " by Apuleius. At the beginning she looked for help in other godly temples. Out of respect for their friend and family member, they said they could not help. With a bounty on her head, it was not long before she was brought to Venus. Venus thought she could break her. What feeble and easily breakable objects humans are! So, she designed tasks for her. All the while Cupid is recovering, unaware that under the same roof, his wife is going through trials. The first task seemed impossible. Venus poured and mixed spices and twigs together, anything small truly. Then, told Psyche to separate them. She knew this was impossible. But, an ant took pity on the poor soul. The ant gathered all of his ant friends and they sorted it for her. Venus knew she did not complete this herself and that made her more angry because that means someone or something is going against her. So, she tried again. Task two was to obtain fleece from the golden sheep ...

I read the story of " The Captive Woman " by Apuleius. This was a tale told through the lens of Lucius. At this point, Lucius is a donkey. He was transformed early in the books. He is now traveling with a band of robbers. They wait until nightfall to rob people. One night, after nightfall, the robbers departed. Lucius abandoned at the camp wandered around for the night. Until, they returned with no gold or jewelry. However, they had a young woman. By the way she was dressed, it was apparent that she was of a good family, a noble family. She wailed and whined about the pain and trauma that they were going to inflict on her. But, the robbers assured her that they only wanted her for the ransom her parents would pay to have her back. She was locked in a cave and cried until she fell asleep. Shortly after falling asleep, she is jolted awake by a nightmare. The woman attempts to find anything she can to end her life. She has not lived long but she cannot imagine living in the worl...

 My thoughts on praise are very in the middle. I think that if we have the opportunity to raise someone's spirits or to acknowledge that we see the hard work that they are doing, we should do it. However, I think there is a harm in too much praise. Individuals start to feel empty or like they didn't do enough if no one tells them the opposite. My first article was " Five Reasons to Stop Saying Good Job! " by Alfie Kohn. This article deepened my thoughts about how constant praise can negatively effect children. These kids are just starting to develop their own sense of self. If we constantly tell them good job, as the article states, we are telling them how they should feel about a project or job they finished and we are setting them up for that constant need for validation. Without it, children would be able to create their own feelings and learn to work through the negative feelings that they have. My second article was " Why Do So Many Managers Avoid Giving Pra...

The Real Goddesses of Ancient Greece  1. Aphrodite v Ares v Hephaestus This is a messy love triangle. Aphrodite is married to Hephaestus, but is in love or in lust with Ares. This causes the other gods to make fun of Hephaestus because he can't keep his wife entertained long enough for her not to cheat. I was thinking this would be a good dinner story. Aphrodite throws a dinner party for the 12 gods of Olympus. This leads to lots of poking and making jokes at Hephaestus, until it all blows up.  https://www.infoplease.com/culture-entertainment/mythology-folklore/classical-mythology-threes-crowd-olympian-love-triangle https://exploringyourmind.com/the-myth-of-aphrodite-and-ares/ 2. Hera v Everyone  Hera, unfortunately, picked the wrong husband. Zeus was consistently unfaithful to her. Because of who he was, however, she was not allowed to punish him. This means she took it out on everyone else, especially the girls of his infidelities. I think this story would be a good one...

  There was a beautiful girl of the founding family of Walmart, the Waltons. Her families pride and joy was her and the company and she wouldn't want it any other way. She was elegant and kind with no evil in her heart. She was the perfect girl of marriage age. On the other side of town, there was a strong, handsome man. He had hair that reflected the sun. His soul was pure and he could do no wrong. He would have been the perfect match for her, but he was from the founding family of Target, the Daytons. These families hated each other with a passion. The each believed the other had stole their idea of starting a small town business and expanding across the nation. Every where a Walmart went a Target popped up not long after. No one in the town had ever seen a rivalry quite like this. One year at the Better Business Banquet, they were seated at the same table. No one talked other than to make snide remarks. But, two young people couldn't help but steal glances and smiles across ...

 Ovid's Metamorphoses  My favorite tale was Echo and Narcissus. This story starts out with a prophecy. Tiresias had knowledge of the future and gave faultless answers to those who consulted. When it came to Narcissus, it was said that he would survive as long as he did not discover himself. For a long while, no one knew what that meant so they continued along their lives like everything is normal. Flash forward a few years and there was a young nymph. She was cursed by Juno to only be able to say the last thing of another person's sentence. She would repeat the last word or words of every sentence. One day, she saw Narcissus. He was the most handsome man she had ever seen. He was strong and beautiful. However, she cannot call out to him. He had a feeling though and stepped out of his group to call to her. She responds to his words and runs to him. She flings her arms around his neck. However, after seeing her he is disgusted and he throws her off. Out of shame she runs away to...

 Ovid's Metamorphoses My favorite tale of the stories told within the first two books of Ovid's Metamorphoses is the story of Phaethon and the Sun. This is a tale about the Sun god's son. All of his life he was told that his heritage was fake and was a lie. Because his mom was the only one who lived with him, they claimed he had no godly heritage. After an argument with his mom, he went to Helios's temple. This was the quickest way to discover if he had true heritage. At his father's temple, his father embraced him and told him to be proud of his heritage for there was no denying he was his son. His father told him that he wanted him to live his best life and if there was anyway he could aide in that he would! But, Phaethon wanted to drive the chariot. This was extremely dangerous for a god and increased exponentially in danger for a mortal. His father begged him for any other request. He went through the dangers that he would be facing and the process. Phaethon was...

I think feedback is an important part of learning. I know for myself if I do not have the opportunity to correct my mistakes, I often do not go back and do it on my own. We have an education system that is linked to learning for the upcoming test and then reviewing for the final. Often times, the gap in between those two tests has a brain dump and you forget. I appreciate when I get the opportunity to work through what I got wrong or what I didn't do correctly.   My first article was " Why Rejection Hurts So Bad " by Guy Winch. I thought this was interesting because I struggle a lot with feelings of inadequacy. I appreciated his break down of the psychology behind it. I think that many people attribute rejection to internal factors like "I'm not good enough" or "someone will always be the first choice". This was presented as a lie in the article. We tear ourselves down before we even get the chance to understand why the rejection happened. My secon...

 1. My first thought is Greek goddesses. This is a very wide variety of information and that would allow the story to truly be taken in any direction that I wanted. I was thinking of doing a Real Goddess of Ancient Greece, similar to the Real Housewives of Orange County. I am interested in this because there are so many myths written in Ancient Greece but very rarely are they from the woman's perspective. The women, however, often drive the story lines and they are the ones who put the curses on people or fight with the gods.  https://www.ancienthistorylists.com/greek-history/top-10-ancient-greek-goddesses/ This image is a compilation of the Greek gods and goddesses. Source:  Flickr  posted by Kenan Korkmaz. 2.  My second thought was the Norse gods. They, similar to the Greek, have a lot of drama and a lot of key players. I wanted to do an actual rendition of these Norse gods within the Marvel universe. They are thrown in there and they are main characters, but ...

There once was a village that lived right on the edge of the jungle. Because of their proximity, animals would wonder in and out of the village. However, the animals did not bring danger to the townspeople. They lived in harmony. One day, a lion, king of the jungle, was walking through the town. He was trying to decide what to get his sister for her birthday. She was always a big fan of the townspeople's jewelry. He was bouncing from stall to stall at the market. That is when he saw her. The most beautiful maiden he had ever seen. She was tall with light brown hair and hazel eyes that reflected the sun in the perfect way. He was completely awestruck. Across the market, they locked eyes. She had a gentle way about her that made him for once feel like he was not a beast or something to be feared. She held his gaze, until she was ripped away by her mother.      "Don't even think about it, he could tear you to bits in one second" said her mother.     "I don't thi...

 Story Source :  The Key of Gold by Josef Baudis (1922).  In this story, we are taken along a journey of a mother. A mother who wanted nothing more than to provide for her children. It was hard when two of them were very greedy and one of them wanted nothing more than a simple rose. After a long day of shopping, the mother was headed home and got terribly lost. She could not believe she forgot her way home. She ran across this beautiful castle with a beautiful garden. A sudden realization hit the mother, she had forgotten about her youngest. However, the castle had flowers to spare. As she took the flowers, a beast appeared. For payment of the flowers, he was to take her youngest. This was a price too great for the mother to pay, but she could not bargain her way out of it. She went home immediately and told her daughter what she must do. The youngest was not distraught about this at all. She went in a hurry with her mother to the castle. There she met the beast. He infor...

Choose from CLASSICAL and/or BIBLICAL units for Weeks 3 and 4. Week 3: Ovid's Metamorphosis Week 4: Cupid and Psyche Choose from MIDDLE EASTERN and/or INDIAN units for Weeks 5 and 6. Week 5: Ancient Egypt Week 6: Sindbad Choose from ASIAN and/or AFRICAN units for Weeks 7 and 9. [Week 8 is review week.] Week 7: Japanese Mythology  Week 9: Congo Choose from NATIVE AMERICAN units for Weeks 10 and 11. Week 10: Inuit Week 11: Marriage Tales Choose from BRITISH and/or CELTIC units for Weeks 12 and 13. Week 12: Canterbury Tales  Week 13: Faerie Queene Choose from EUROPEAN units for Weeks 14 and 15. Week 14: Inferno  Week 15: Russian I am very excited for all of these units. Mythology has always been very intriguing to me because they were spread throughout so many countries and they have such strong similarities but they are not the same. I think that I am most excited for week 3 and 4 because I love Greek mythology. I enjoy learning about the gods and each of their offsp...