Week 14 Story: Natasha and Igor

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Natasha looked back and forth between the path into the woods and her village. She hadn’t gotten permission to go into the woods, and she knew that her parents would be upset with her. However, she desperately needed to pick some of the flowers that grew in the little glade. The glade wasn’t very far into the trees. She could be in and out quickly, with no one the wiser. She was the only girl in the village without the flowers to braid into a wreath. Having finally talked herself into disobedience, Natasha stealthily followed the path into the trees.

She hadn’t gotten far before the gray-haired man jumped out at her. Natasha gasped in surprise and stumbled backwards over a log. “You frightened me,” she exclaimed. “Who are you?”

“I am your new master,” the gray-haired man replied. “My name is Igor, and you will come with me now.”

Natasha began to feel light-headed and confused; a disorienting haze had settled over her mind. “I cannot go with you. Please, leave me alone. My father is a priest.” She shook her head in an attempt to clear the sudden cobwebs.

Igor grabbed Natasha’s arm and dragged her deeper into the woods. “Yes, you belong to me now. You will cook my food and clean my home. Your name is only girl now, you have no need to remember your old life. Come, girl. You have work to do.”

Natasha lived with Igor for three years, and forgot her old life in the village. She knew only the drudgery of constant labor and believed her gray-haired master when he told her that she would starve and die without his care. Each day was identical to the one that came before, and time blurred into a irrelevance, with nothing ever changing. Until the day that Igor stumbled into the hut, bloody and dying.

Natasha was crying over Igor’s body, lamenting her fate without a provider to feed her, when a strange man entered the hut. He demanded answers to questions that she didn’t understand, questions that didn’t have an answer. She had no name, other than girl, and she didn’t know where she had come from. She had only every known Igor’s hut.

Confused and afraid, she was dragged by the stranger through the woods to a village. There were so many people in the village and their stares frightened her so terribly. A man and a woman stepped forward and claimed that she was their daughter, but how could such a thing be true? She had no memory of these people and their loud voices frightened her.

The man, who said his name was Anton, claimed to be a priest. He told her that she’d gone missing in the woods three years prior. He and his wife, the woman who claimed to be her mother, took Natasha home and settled her into an unfamiliar room in an unfamiliar cottage. Trembling in fear, but finally alone, Natasha fell into a deep sleep that was full of vivid dreams. In her dreams, she was twelve years old and looking down a path into the woods, desperately thinking about flowers for a wreath.

Author's Note: The story, The Leshy, follows a young hunter who finds a missing girl that had been kidnapped by a forest demon. The young girl, the daughter of the local priest, had gone missing in the woods several years prior. One day, while out hunting, the hunter came across a odd looking man sitting on a log and working on a shoe. The hunter asks the man who he is, pointing out that he looked young, but had very gray hair. The odd man introduces himself as the devil's grandfather. The hunter shoots the demon, who runs off into the woods. The hunter follows him and comes across a cleft in a cliff. Inside is a hut, and inside the hut is the body of the now dead demon and the missing girl. He takes the girl back to the village and she's returned to her family. He memory is gone, but begins to return over time. She is eventually married to the hunter that saved her.

I wanted to tell the story from the girl's point of view, giving a little glimpse of what her life was like living with the Leshy and what happened to her memories. I also wanted to provide an explanation for why the young girl had gone into the woods without her parent's permission, and to establish the circumstance of her capture by the Leshy.


Bibliography: Russian Fairy Tales by W.R.S. Ralston. Web source.

Growth Mindset: Multiple Intelligences

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- I had heard of multiple intelligences before, but I didn't really remember what they were. There are some that I definitely feel like I have a "high IQ" in that particular area, but most I would consider myself to be average or below average.

- Most of my classes, this semester, have several different types of intelligence that get a workout. Verbal-linguistic is probably the one that is used most often, but it's hardly the only one. In this class, adding pictures to my blog posts and the creation of my website, I think, calls upon visual-spatial intelligence. The commenting falls under interpersonal, while a lot of the reflection required for story writing is very intrapersonal.

- Of the many intelligences, I feel that my visual-spatial, musical, and bodily-kinesthetic are the ones that need the most work. They just aren't things that play to my strengths, but they are very much ones that I would like to improve.

Reading Notes: Alice in Wonderland, Part A

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- The scene in Alice in Wonderland with the caterpillar was always my favorite. Alice had just recently come to wonderland after chasing the white rabbit. In the time that she's been there, she has gone through various size changes, from very large to very small. At the point when she meets the caterpillar, she is very small and is quite put out about it. She's also terribly confused about where she is and what's going on. She comes across this caterpillar, sitting on a mushroom and smoking a hookah. The caterpillar is terribly grumpy and vague, and not being at all helpful as far as Alice is concerned. Of course, Alice herself is quite confused and is probably quite irritating to the caterpillar.
- The caterpillar is a slow moving and thinking individual, he doesn't see much point in rushing. Much of the scene is taking up by silence while the caterpillar puffs on his hookah. I always thought he had the proper approach to life. He asks what he views as a simple question, and receives a confusing and somewhat nonsensical reply from Alice. Being a quiet, thoughtful, and rather torpid creature, he doesn't grasp the concepts behind Alice's confusion and just sees the young girl as being obtuse. It's no wonder that he's grumpy about the whole situation.
- Eventually, the caterpillar displays some measure of sympathy for Alice's predicament. As he's leaving he tells her that one side will make her smaller and the other side will make her larger. He doesn't specify what he's referring to, but eventually Alice realizes that he means the mushroom upon which he was sitting. He also didn't specify which side will accomplish which goal, which I think is very true to the character of the caterpillar. Alice can figure that our for herself.
- I have always thought this story begged to be told from the caterpillar's point of view. How is he perceiving this strange little girl who came barging into his life, asking weird questions, providing even weirder answers, and just being a general nuisance.


Bibliography: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Web source.

Reading Notes: Russian Folk Tales, Part B

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- The story, The Two Friends, is a Russian folktale with shades of Rip Van Winkle. Two friends, both male, grow up together and are very close. They make a promise to each other to invite the other to their weddings, even if one is dead. Well, not long after, one of them dies. The remaining man decides to marry one day, and is on his way with a group to his wedding. As they pass the graveyard, he stops to invite his old, dead friend to his wedding. The friend jumps out of the grave and invites his old friend in for a drink to toast his upcoming marriage. He agrees and the two enter the grave for a drink. When they have the first drink, 100 years passes. They have a second drink and another 100 years passes. The same thing happens with after a third drink. Finally, the bridegroom says he must leave to go get married. However, when he exits the grave he sees that the graveyard is an overgrown wasteland that hadn't been cared for. He heads back to the village, which is nothing like what he left, being 300 years older. Everyone that he knows has died, and everything is different. The man goes to a priest and tells his story. The priest does a bit of research and finds an old story, from 300 years prior, about a bridegroom who goes missing in a graveyard and is never seen again. The woman he was supposed to marry moves on and marries someone else.
- I would focus my story more on the differences in the world in the 300 years that have passed. A person from 1717 could not begin to comprehend the world of 2017. The differences are so vast and so all consuming that it would be impossible to understand them. I would start out describing the typical village of the 18th century in Russia, do a quick telling of the events in the graveyard, then focus the majority of the story on what this 18th century guys sees about the 21st century world.


Bibliography: Russian Fairy Tales by W.R.S. Ralston. Web source.

Reading Notes: Russian Folk Tales, Part A

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- The story, The Leshy, follows a young hunter who finds a missing girl that had been kidnapped by a forest demon. The young girl, the daughter of the local priest, had gone missing in the woods several years prior. One day, while out hunting, the hunter came across a odd looking man sitting on a log and working on a shoe. The hunter asks the man who he is, pointing out that he looked young, but had very gray hair. The odd man introduces himself as the devil's grandfather. The hunter shoots the demon, who runs off into the woods. The hunter follows him and comes across a cleft in a cliff. Inside is a hut, and inside the hut is the body of the now dead demon and the missing girl. He takes the girl back to the village and she's returned to her family. He memory is gone, but begins to return over time. She is eventually married to the hunter that saved her.
- I want to tell the story from  the girl's point of view. What was her life like living with the Leshy? What did he want from her, and why and how are her memories missing? The young girl had gone into the woods without her parent's permission. What had drawn her there, and what were the circumstances of her capture by the Leshy?


Bibliography: Russian Fairy Tales by W.R.S. Ralston. Web source.

Week 13 Story: Seeking Death

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The bartender sighed in frustration, while cleaning a glass. The three drunks were back, and they were making a nuisance of themselves, as they always did. They were young, they were stupid, and they did nothing to contribute to society. He hoped they choked on their own vomit.

The waitress resisted the urge to brain the three drunks with a beer mug. If they weren’t bumping into her and making her spill the drinks on her tray, they were groping her inappropriately. To add insult to injury, the jerks never tipped! She hoped someone would do the world a favor and kill the bastards.

“Did you hear Death got Old Maude?” The bartender asked the waitress as she served one of the tables near the bar.

“Did he now? That’s a sad state of affairs. I heard Death got Mr. Pennyroyal just yesterday.” The waitress replied. “Death sure has been busy lately. He got two whole families just last week.”

“Who is this Death guy? Where does he live?” One of the three drunks demanded.

“Where does Death live?” The bartender quizzically asked.

“Yeah, where does he live? Me and my friends will take care of him.” Another of the drunks chimed in.

Realizing that the drunks thought they were talking about an actual person, the waitress and the bartender shared a look of disdain. “Freaking idiots.” The waitress muttered under her breath.

“I think he lives the next town over.” The bartender decided to just go with it, happy for anything that would make the three morons leave.

The three drunks stumbled out of the bar and started heading up the road toward the next village. After a couple of minutes, they came upon an old man leaning against a fence.

“Look at the old man! Hey old man, what are you doing out here? Shouldn’t you be off somewhere else, being old? Being old must be terrible. Why would you do something so stupid?” Two of the drunks laughed at their buddies comment, thinking it the height of humor.

“Well, it beats the alternative.” The old man replied drily. “You would do well to show more respect to your elders. What are you ruffians out doing?”

“We’re looking for Death, old man. We’re going to kill him. I bet you know where to find him. In fact, I bet you’re a spy for him. How else would you get so old? Tell us where he is, or I’ll punch you in the face.” Once more, the drunks proved themselves deeply stupid.

Death smiled to himself in amusement. He hadn’t been sure what he’d wanted to do to the three drunks, but when they threatened the old man that he’d disguised himself as, he decided that he was going to play with them a bit. “Actually, I just saw him a few minutes ago. He headed up that path into the woods.”

Without even a word of thanks, the three drunks began walking up the path leading to the woods. They hadn’t gone far into the trees when they stumbled up a large pile of gold. Upon seeing the riches, they immediately forgot their quest to seek out Death, and began plotting how to smuggle the gold out of the woods.

“We have to wait until it’s dark so that no one sees us carrying it.” Drunk Number One said.

“Alright, then you head and get some food and drinks to get us through until dark.” Drunk Number Two replied.

Drunk Number One walked back to the village, and began plotting how to get all of the gold for himself. He decided that he’d poison a bottle of wine, then give it to the other two.

Drunk Number Two and Drunk Number Three were creating  plot of their own. “When he gets back, we need to kill him.” Drunk Number Three said. “That way, the gold will be split two ways instead of three. Drunk Number Two nodded in agreement.

When Drunk Number One returned, he was immediately pounced on by his buddies. They stabbed and they stabbed until their friend stopped twitching. To celebrate their successful murder, the two remaining drunks chugged the bottle of wine that their ex-friend had brought. The poison was very painful. It took them a long time to die.

The old man walked into the bar and nodded politely to the bartender and the waitress. “Well, none of us will be bothered by those annoying drunks anymore.”

“Why not?” The bartender asked.

“They went out looking for Death.” The old man smiled slyly. “It seems that they found him.”

Author's Note: The Pardoner's Tale is one story within the collection by Chaucer known as the Canterbury Tales. A pardoner was an individual in the Middle Ages who would go around the countryside and sell church pardons, signed by a bishop, that entitled the bearer to be forgiven of their sins.

The pardoner tells a story about a group of three revelers, which would be a general term to describe rebellious young men who are more interesting in drinking and partying than in being contributing members of society.

The revelers overhear a conversation about how Death keeps killing people. Death is being anthropomorphized, and is talked about as though he is an actual person, but it's difficult to tell if that is how everyone is speaking of Death, or if that's simply the way the revelers, in their ignorance, understand it. I think it's everyone, because I believe that the tavern keeper mentions that he must live in the village over. I decided that I preferred to have it be a misunderstanding on the part of the revelers.

The three young men decide to go and find Death and kill him. In their search, they come across an old man and make fun of him for being old. Then, they decide that he must be a spy for Death and threaten him. They demand to know where Death is. The old man tells them to follow a path into the woods and they will find him. In my story, I wanted to make it obvious that the old man actually is Death.

The revelers travel into the woods where they find a big pile of gold coins. One of the men is sent into town to get food so that they can wait and take the gold out of the forest at night, so they won't be seen. While separated, they all plot to kill each other in order to increase the amount of gold that they will have. In the end, all three die.


Bibliography: "The Pardoner's Tale: The Revelers," The Chaucer Story Book by Eva March Tappan. Web source.

Reading Notes: Canterbury Tales, Part B

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- The Nun's Priest's Tale in the Canterbury Tales is also the tale of the Cock, the Hen, and the Fox. A poor old widow lives alone with her two daughters. She doesn't have much, but she makes do. One thing she does have is a fantastic rooster. His name is Chanticleer. He is the greatest, most beautiful, smartest rooster ever. Chanticleer has seven hen-wives. His favorite, the most beautiful, is Demoiselle Partelote. So, one night Chanticleer has a dream about a small red animal with glowing eyes and black markings. The dream frightens Chanticleer. When he tells his favorite wife about the dream, she shames him and says that men are not supposed to be afraid of things, especially not dreams. Unbeknownst to them, there is an evil fox lurking nearby, and it desperately wants to get is jaws on Chanticleer. One day, the fox comes up and flatters and tricks Chanticleer (who should have been warned by his dream), then grabs the rooster by the neck and takes off with him. Chanticleer crows for help, and a bunch of humans chase after the fox. Chanticleer then tricks the fox and gets away.
- The story provides two morals, one from the perspective of the fox and one from the rooster. The rooster's moral is 'no one will ever thrive who shuts up his eyes when he ought to keep them open.' The fox's moral is 'bad luck to him who talks when he ought to hold his peace.'
- I want to retell the story from Demoiselle Parelote's perspective. She shames him for being afraid of his dream, when they should have heeded the warning in it. She needs her own moral 'only the foolish scoff at a warning that is given.'


Bibliography: The Chaucer Story Book by Eva March Tappan. Web source.