Week 3 Story: A Lions Game

Once upon a time in a land far far away, there lay a lioness and a lion under a great big tree. This lion and lioness rules all of their kingdom, with their reach being far and wide. These two lions ate antelope exclusively and the hyenas that also lived in the kingdom knew this. One day, one of the hyenas decided to paint itself like an antelope. This hyena was big so it looked like a big antelope when it was painted. This made it look nice and juicy for the other lions. The King Lion was convinced by the Queen lion to go follow the big juicy antelope around until he catches it. The King Lion chased the “antelope” around and through his whole domain. Eventually he catches it, and when he does he killed it with a humongous bite. After he killed the hyena’s soul came out of the body and talked to the King Lion. Turns out the hyena was actually possessed by a demon! The hyena’s soul let out a big roar, the same way the King Lion did. The roar was the same type of roar that the lion made when he was in pain. This roar carried for miles, as lion roars carry on for long distances. The Lioness heard it and got concerned. She talked to her trusty adviser the monkey and he told her that he is not to leave her side. After much more convincing, the monkey finally leaves to check on the Lion King.    

A portrait of the Lion King from my story

Source: Pixabay

Authors note: This story is a retelling of The Golden Deer and The Chase from the Ramayana Part B. In these stories Rama is convinced by Sita to go chase a golden deer but the deer was actually another form of a Rakshasa. The deer gets killed and the Rakshasa comes out and starts talking like Rama. Sita hears and convinces Lakshana to go and check on Rama.  

Source: PDE Ramayana 

Reading Notes: Ramayana Part B

Battle with Khara:

• Kind of a sinister setting. Animals howling with a red sun that gets swallowed.
• Rama wants to fight them alone.
• Laksmana and Sita go and sit in a cave
• The Rakshashas appear and come after him looking like a black cloud because they are so dense
• Thousands of weapons are thrown at him as he starts shooting flaming arrows.
• Rama gets a celestial weapon and slays Dushana.
• Sita comes out of hiding and kisses Rama

The Golden Deer:

• Maricha takes the form of a golden deer
• Maricha sings to Sita and has her convince Rama to go follow the deer

The Chase:

• Rama chases a deer and shoots it through the heart
• Maricha comes out of the deer and in Rama's voice calls out to Sita
• Sita gets scared and asks for help to check for what Rama is doing
• Sita gets mad because Lakshmana will not leave her side to go check on Rama
• Lakshmana gives in and goes to check on Rama

Maricha as a Golden Deer

Courtesy of Wikimedia

Source: PDE Ramayana 

Reading Notes PDE Ramayana-A Week 3

• 2 kingdoms
• Koshala: King Dasharatha
• Mithila: King Janaka
• Capital of Koshala was Ayodhya. Big grand city lots of temples and stuff. Lots of wildlife
• King of Koshala sad because no sons from his three queens
• Horse sacrifice. Horse wandered around for a year and came back and along with 21 other animals was sacrificed
• Gods promised 4 sons to king
• One of the sons born is a reincarnation of Vishnu and was born in order to defeat the king of the rakshasas Ravana. Vishnu born as Rama. Brahmin recognizes this and tells the king
• A wise sage comes and asks Rama to fight against the rakshashas. Reluctantly, Dasharatha agrees
• Rama fights Thataka and cuts off her arms. She turns invisible and then starts throwing boulders so he shoots her with an arrow.
• Suddenly rakshashas appeared and attacked Rama but he killed them all.

Source: PDE of Ramayana, Multiple Authors

Battle of Lanka

Source: Wikimedia

Microfiction Week 2

The alligator tries to trick a monkey across a river in order to eat his heart. The monkey realizes this and tricks the alligator into taking him back to land.

Late nights don't stop the train.

Picture from Twitter

Authors Note: The first short story is a two sentence microfiction where I tried to basically retell the story I read in this week's reading, but in two sentences. The 6 word story is about a picture I found on twitter under the #6wordstory hashtag. I think it is hard to tell a story in 6 words as it leaves basically everything up to interpretation. I also counted the conjunction "don't" as one word so maybe it is actually a 7 word story.

Original story source: 

Eastern Stories and Legends by Marie L. Shedlock, The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart

Feedback Thoughts

For this assignment I read Why rejection hurts so much and Seven ways to crush self doubt. I think the biggest thing that I learned from reading these two articles is something that we have learned before, the growth mindset. Both of the articles mention this mindset in a sense, one directly and one indirectly. They both admit that having a little self-doubt is good and is necessary in order to be able to reflect upon yourself and your past decisions but dragging yourself down because of those decisions is bad and should not happen. I think some of the best forms of feedback I've received is that from my friends. They are never afraid to tell me how it is, even if that is something I may not want to hear. The good thing is they are always helpful in finding solutions to my problems as well. 

Image from Cheezburger

Topic Brainstorm

The Gods: There are so many different gods in the Hindu culture I think it would be interesting to learn more about a couple and what they represent. I have a little previous knowledge on the subject as my mother is very religious and I go to the Hindu temple decently frequently with her when I am back in my hometown of St. Louis. However,  I have never really taken the time to learn about everything in there and I think this would be a good chance in order to actually learn more.

Weapons of the Gods: I've always been interested in ancient conflicts as times were so much different back then that the conflict resolutions aren't as applicable anymore. Sometimes this conflict was resolved through war or physical violence. I think it would be interesting to learn more about these conflicts and the weapons used in them. These weapons could be both physical weapons like spears and axes and what not but I'm sure there are other supernatural weapons used like being able to summon storms and things like that.

Animal Characters of the Ramayana: I have been very interested in animals my whole life. Animals also always play a huge part in stories all over the world. I think it would be interesting to look at the similarities and differences that animals play in the Hindu epics as compared to something like the Bible. I have a little previous knowledge about this as I know that in Hinduism, most gods have an animal associated with them as their vessel. I'm not sure if there are similar things in other religions but that might be something interesting to look into.

Food: I love food. Most people love food. I took a class last year called Diet in the Mediterranean, which I have mentioned before, that delved very deeply into what exactly food can tell us about a religion, place, or people. Taking this knowledge into the Hindu epics would be a good way to tie together different classes.

Some statues of Hindu Gods

Flickr

Week 2 Story

Fool's Gold

Once upon a time, sailing an ocean far away, was a pirate that sailed the open seas, looting everything in sight. This pirate was considered to be the richest in all the land and him and his crew were always clever in order to not get caught. Deep under the sea, there was a Kraken and his wife that lived in solitude, but always longed the riches that land contained. One day the wife turned to the Kraken and said, “Oh Kraken king, how I long to feast on the riches of the pirate. He has everything from all the lands in one place.”

“How do you propose I take his riches dear wife?” said the Kraken King. “He has the biggest cannons in all the land! There is now way that we can just sink him like all the other pirates!”

“Trick him,” the Kraken wife said. “Use his own greed against him and get him to come to the sea alone.” That day when the pirate set sail from his home, the Kraken approached his ship very calmly and said, “Oh most successful pirate, I have found a whole stash of gold in the most remote of locations but it is only accessible by row boat. If you will let me, I will escort you to the location, but only you can come.” Greedily, the pirate agreed and the two set off to find the loot. Suddenly the Kraken turned around and started grabbing the boat, trying to sink it. “Fool, what are you doing,” the pirate said. “I have no gold with me on this boat it is all at a secret location I will tell you if you let me go.” Reluctantly, the Kraken agreed and took the pirate to land where he said the loot was. “Fool! You have escorted me back to land. You have no power here and I will signal for my ship to come get me.” Defeated, the Kraken swam back to his abode under the sea to his disappointed wife.

“Wife,” he said, “Even though we are big and strong and can sink any ship we please, what is the point if we can’t be happy with whatever we have?”   

Kraken Sinking a Ship

Flickr

Authors Note: This story was derived from The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart from the reading anthology. It tells a tale of basically two characters and how one outwits the other. 

Original Story:
Eastern Stories and Legends by Marie L. Shedlock, The Crocodile and the Monkey's Heart