Week 5 Storytelling: The Wizard's Apprentice

Once upon a time, there was a teenage boy who idolized wizards and magic. The boy, Ethan, had grown up reading wonderful stories about witches and wizards and the magnificent quests they journeyed on. He had obsessed about their vast powers and enchanting spells. All Ethan wanted out of life was to become a wizard.

But the wizards he read about we old, and he was young. Most wizards had long gray beards, and he couldn't get a single hair to grow on his chin. But most importantly of all, the wizards he read about could do magic, and Ethan had no magical abilities.

Until one day, he was at the market with his mother, and Ethan saw an old man with a long gray beard. As Ethan watched, the wizard made a dove disappear. Ethan's jaw dropped. He had found a wizard at last!

(Image Information: "Wizard Gray Magician" uploaded by OpenClips 2013.)

Ethan went running up to the wizard and begged the wizened man to teach him how to perform magic. The wizard happily took on an apprentice because he was growing old and sore. The wizard taught Ethan all he had ever dreamed of. He learned to perform transfiguration, to concoct potions, to speak to beasts, and to move objects around at his will.

Once the wizard had taught Ethan everything he had to teach, he presented a final test for Ethan.

"If you have truly been a good apprentice and learned everything you could, you will be able to turn me into a beautiful staff and sell me at an auction," the wizard instructed. "But keep one small gem from the staffs handle in order to turn me back."

Ethan nodded enthusiastically, and with a wave of his hand, his master became a gleaming gold staff, plated with rubies and sapphires. He carefully plucked a single sapphire from the staff and pocketed it before carrying the staff to the nearest auction.

The staff was very popular and sold for 10,000 gold coins. Ethan was very excited and was sure this would please his master.

With the displaced sapphire in his hand, Ethan waved again and his master became a human again. The auctioneer and the bidders were very angry at the loss of the golden staff, but Ethan could run very quickly. He took the 10,000 gold coins, and calling to his master to follow him, Ethan high-tailed it out of the auction house.

But because the wizard was old and frail and was still recovering from the transfiguration, he couldn't run fast enough and was swarmed by the angry mob of bidders.

Once Ethan had escaped, he turned back, expecting to see his master. But the wizard was no where to be seen.

"Oh no! What have I done?" Ethan lamented.

A little white dove landed on his shoulder and cooed reassuringly.

"Don't fret my dear wizard, your master was old and his time had come. He only wanted to leave you with money to support yourself before he crossed on to the next life. Rejoice at your good fortune, and morn your master respectfully."

With this the dove flew away, leaving Ethan rightfully grieved but also pleased with his good fortune. He had become a wizard at last.

Author's Note: This story was inspired by The Wizard and His Pupil , from the Forty-Four Turkish Fairy Tales book by Ignacz Kunos, with illustrations by Willy Pogany from 1913. In the original story, the young boy keeps running away from school and begs to be the pupil of a wizard. The wizard teaches the boy how to transform things, and they essentially have competitions to see who is better at magic. In the end, the boy turns himself into grain, and the wizard turns himself into a rooster to eat up all the grain. But the boy turns back into a human quickly and rings the roosters neck.

In my version, one of my mains goals was that I wanted to have the apprentice and the wizard get along better. So I chose to tell it in a more awestruck manner than the tricky way the original is told. But I liked the death scene at the end of the story. So I had the wizard sacrifice himself for the boy's happiness.

Week 5 Reading Diary: Turkish Fairy Tales

This week I chose to read the Turkish Fairy Tales unit.

The first story is about a young boy who goes on a journey in search of fear. It really seems to back up the saying "Courage is the absence of fear."

But it seems like a cop out that he wasn't afraid of corpses or sea monsters but that he was startled by a bird. I was expecting something more exciting.

I really don't understand the Wizard-Dervish story. If the dervish wanted the prince to marry his daughter, why didn't he just say so instead of beating him and carrying him all over the place.

The story of the Fish-Peri (fish fairy) reminded me a lot of Monty Python and the Holy Grail in the way that the king asked the youth to do impossible things like hatch donkeys from eggs and bring him an infant who could already walk and talk.

(Video information: "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" clip, 1975.)

The Crow-Peri story is reminiscent of the Fish-Peri story in that they have similar plot elements. It's funny to me how the king thinks its totally fine to ask the youth to run his errands. It really shows the entitled mindset of some royalty. 

The part of The Imp and the Well where the story teller talks about all of the cat's body parts is just plain silly.

I like that coffeehouses are mentioned throughout these stories. I'm not sure what an old Turkish coffeehouse would look like, but I've been picturing them like Grey Owl in Norman.

The Wizard and his Pupil might be fun to rewrite for my storytelling assignment.

The last story, Kunterbunt, certainly felt like a dream because it didn't make any sense!

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Week 4 Essay: Wisdom Through Riddles

Wisdom was a central theme in this week's reading unit, Twenty-Two Goblins. In the story, a king was trying to accomplish the task assigned to him by a monk. The king was supposed to bring a dead body to the cemetery. But there was a goblin living in the dead body that was hanging from a tree who tried to trick the king with riddles.

(Image information: "The Goblin in a Tree" by Perham W. Nahl 1917.)

Each story was part of a greater story, and the riddles at the end of each story underscored the overall theme of wisdom. Because while the king was on a quest to complete his assigned task, he was also on a quest to discover the true motives of the monk, and he did this by impressing the goblin with the correct answers to the riddles.

In the beginning, the riddles were fairly similar. They were questions like if three lovers all contributed to bringing a dead girl to life, which one deserves her as his wife? The king would then say something like that only the man who slept by her lifeless body each night deserved to marry her because that is the role of a husband. I definitely guessed that answer before I read it. But over the course of the story, the goblin's riddles became trickier.

A more difficult riddle was about a Brahman who died because a snake's poison dripped from his mouth into the Brahman's food that was given to him by a charitable man. But the snake was dying in the claws of a hawk when it happened. So who is to blame for the Brahman's death? I thought it would be the hawk because the snake couldn't help what he did while he was dying, and the charitable man was only trying to be friendly. But the hawk was already trying to kill someone. But the king said that the Brahman himself was responsible for his death because he accused the charitable man of poisoning him. That seemed a bit severe to me. Nonetheless, the riddles made me really contemplate the characters and the themes in order to  gain wisdom about the situation.

All throughout the story, the king had the knowledge necessary to vanquish evil, but he thought that the goblin was evil and was who needed to be defeated. So even though the king could answer almost every riddle, he still gained knowledge from his quest.

Week 4 Storytelling: The Second Chance Wedding

Once upon a time, near the river bank, a husband and wife had a beautiful daughter, Tiana. She had long, dark curly hair and skin the color of milk chocolate. She was of an age to wed, and many men pursued her. There were three men in particular who made the strongest advances, Anthony, Paul, and Colin.

The suitors would bring Tiana gifts of sweets and flowers, and the young people would spend many evenings lounging and laughing on Tiana's front porch. Over time, Tiana became close friends with all three men, and she didn't know how she would ever choose just one to marry.

But one day, Tiana tragically fell ill. The suitor were not allowed to visit her on her death bed because she was terribly contagious. Tiana's parents wept because her condition wasn't improving. A few days later, Tiana died, and the news was brought to Anthony, Paul, and Colin.

The three men all grieved together because surely they would have rather she pick a suitor other than themselves than die at such a young age.

At Tiana's funeral, the three young men all performed tasks to honor her memory. Anthony was one of the pall-bearers, who carried her casket up the aisle of the beautifully adorned church. Paul gave a touching speech about all of the good times the young lovers had spent together. Tears welled up in his eyes as he spoke. But at the end of the funeral, Colin refused to leave Tiana's side. Many friends and family members tried to pull him away and out of the church. But no one prevailed. His grief was too strong, and he felt it in such a physical way that he couldn't leave her.

That night, Colin slept in the church next to her coffin. The old church creaked eerily during the night. But nothing would sway him from his duty to Tiana.

In the morning, an angel appeared to Colin. The angel was translucent white and hovered a few inches above the floor.

"Colin," the angel said, "You have shown true devotion to your one and only love. A father figure could carry his daughter's casket up the aisle, and any friend or family member could make a heartfelt speech at her funeral. But only her true lover would spend all night with her in a creaky church. To honor your great devotion, lift the lid of the coffin and reunite with your bride."

Wiping tears from his eyes, Colin stood and opened the casket. Upon doing so, Tiana happily sat up and began to climb out. She was wearing a beautiful lace wedding dress with a long, elegant train.

(Image information: "Bride Marriage Wedding Dress" uploaded by GloriaAgostina.) 

Colin wrapped her in his arms and spun her around and around. Before they knew it, the church had filled with wedding guests, the coffin had disappeared, and wedding bells were ringing.

Author's Note: This story was inspired by "The Three Lovers Who Brought The Dead Girl to Life. Whose Wife Should She Be?" from the collection Twenty-Two Goblins, translated by Arthur W. Ryder with illustrations by Perham W. Nahl (1917).

In the original story, there are a lot of Indian customs involved in how the suitors bring the girl back to life. One suitor dips her bones in a river, another used magic, and a third kept her ashes. I chose to tell this story in a more simple way to make it more realistic than the original. My main goals for this story were to evoke emotions of loss contrasted with joy.

Week 4 Reading Diary: Twenty-Two Goblins

This week I chose to read the Indian unit about Twenty-Two Goblins.


I really love the character of the king so far. He always does the right thing.


An example of this is in the introduction when he says to Patience: "Monk, why do you keep honouring me in such an expensive way? Unless I know the reason, I will not take your fruit."


I also really enjoyed the simile about the king's heart: "A brave man's heart is harder than a diamond, and nothing makes it tremble." I have a feeling this is the moral of the king's story and how he evades the goblin.


The way some of this story is phrased makes me giggle. Like how the Coral's suitors in the story of The Three Lovers "feasted on the beauty of her face."


I think it's funny how the monk who is traveling refused to eat in the house of evil, but when the little boy was brought back to life everything was suddenly okay. How was it not still an evil house?


I also find it very funny that if the king knows the answers to the riddles but says differently that his head will explode.


I really like how deep the morals of these stories are so far. For example, "Great-minded people do not waver until they have kept their promises, even at the cost of life."


In the story of the Girl who Transposed the Heads of her Husband and Brother, I think it's interesting how Spotless was so matter-of-fact about his son, White, marrying Lovely. He explained how the two were of equal birth, wealth, and social status, and that was that. There was no concern of whether Lovely wanted to marry White at all.


The way White's brother-in-law when mad with grief and cut off his own head seems very Shakespearean to me.

In the story of The Snake's Poison, I liked how the birds, the earth, and the leaves all lamented the loss of something as Hariswami lamented the loss of his beautiful wife.

At the end of the story about The General's Wife, there is a beautiful line: "No man stops in the middle of a great undertaking." I think this is a very much needed rationale for why the kind keeps going back to get the goblin and why he keeps answering the riddles correctly. It's become the principle of the thing, and if he's going to do it, he's going to do it right.

It seems very coincidental to me that in the story of The Four Brothers, they all learned skills that were related to each other. It's almost as if they planned it that way on purpose.

I really enjoyed the ending of the story because it was so unexpected. The goblin finally stumped the king, but then the goblin turned out to be the good guy and the monk was the bad guy! I thought that was a good twist ending.

Week 3 Essay: Repeating Morals and Motifs in Aesop's Fables

There were many different things that recurred in the series of Aesop's (Winter) Fables that I read this week. There were repeating animal characters like donkeys, lions, wolves, and foxes. There were morals of the stories that overlapped and expanded on each other. The most popular morals were ones that warned against dishonesty and being prideful. And there were plot elements like trickery and betrayal that kept cropping up. I think these things were repeated because the author thought they were the most important and the most useful at conveying his message.

The wolf appeared in stories like The Wolf and the Kid, The Wolf and His Shadow, and The Wolf and The Lion. In the first one, the kid tricked the lion into not eating him, which highlights a recurring motif characters cheating each other. With that, the moral was "don't let anything turn you from your purpose" because if the wolf had stayed on task he would have won his prize. In the second story, the wolf sees his huge shadow on the ground and thinks he is much more fierce than in reality. The moral in the story was not to "let your fancies make you forget your realities." Here the repeating theme is animals getting a big head. In the last story, the wolf steals a lamb, but then the lion steals it from the wolf. The moral of the story was that what has been won through evil will be lost because of evil. I see this story's theme as being a combination of trickery and pigheadedness.

The fox played roles in stories The Dog, The Cock, and The Fox and The Fox and The Leopard. In the former, the dog and the cock were best friends, and when the fox tried to trick the cock into being eaten, the cock tricked the fox into being chased by the dog. The moral of the story was those who "try to deceive may expect to be paid their own coin," and the repeat motif was that both the fox and the cock tried to scam each other. In the later, the leopard thought himself to be both attractive and intelligent, but the fox clues him in to his foolishness. The moral was that "a fine coat is not always an indication of an attractive mind."

(Image information: "The Fox and The Leopard" by Milo Winter 1919.)

The donkey showed up in The Ass and His Driver, The Lion and The Ass, and The Ass and The Image. The morals of his stories tended to all related to motifs of stubbornness, foolishness, and deceit. In the story about the driver, the ass was taught a lesson about the downfalls of determination when his driver let him walk off the cliff edge. The moral was that those who are stubborn and don't listen are on the road to misfortune. In the story with the lion, the lion is given regal treatment, and because the ass is jealous, he scorns the lion.The moral was "do not resent the remarks of a fool" because they don't know what they are talking about. Similarly, in the story about the image, the ass is again jealous of the treatment paid to the image and tries to take the admiration for himself. The moral was not to take credit for someone else's actions.

The lion played in The Lion and The Ass and The Lion and the Gnat. In the story with the gnat, the gnat kept stinging and annoying the lion and making the lion scratch himself. The moral was not "to let pride throw you off guard." I think this is very similar to the moral in The Wolf and His Shadow.

The culmination of this comparison is The Ass, The Fox, and The Lion because so many of these repeat characters make appearances. The fox and the ass are best friends and the fox tries to sacrifice the ass to the lion to save himself, much like in the story about the dog, the cock, and the fox. While the moral of this story is that "traitors may expect treachery," I also see a theme of trickery here.