Week 7 Storytelling: Mizu To Ki

(fire and water from HD Wallpapers)

Kagu-tsuchi heaved a deep sigh as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He truly was getting too old for this. Mizu, of course, seemed as unaffected as ever - rambling on and on about old fishermen and cranky old crones who feed giant crocodiles and deserved what they got -

“There aren’t even any crocodiles in this part of the world!” Kagu finally lost his temper, sparks twitching from the hand clenched tight about his other elbow. “We’re miles above Australia and they don’t migrate!”

“She was totally feeding crocodiles,” Mizu retorted with a pout. “I saw her do it.”

Kagu stared at his little brother long and hard. Finally, he had to ask, “Have you been eating wild mushrooms again?”

“No!” Mizu hollered, stamping his foot and making the already flooded river rise even higher. “I don’t understand why you keep asking me these things! I’m not on drugs - she had a crocodile, I saw her!”

Kagu suppressed another sigh as he waved a hand at the large mess his little brother was making. Fire leapt to his call and burned away the water, coating the land in a thick fog. “Of course you did,” Kagu stated without conviction, “I believe you.”

Mizu was appeased, and just like that his cheery disposition returned. The boy danced off into the fog happily humming about something. Probably spotted a butterfly. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Kagu watched in slight disbelief of the fact that the two of them were related at all. Especially considering that it was Mizu’s fault, and Kagu was absolutely certain he’d be blamed again.

It always happened like this - Mizu would get angry or upset at something and overflow every last bit of water within a hundred mile radius. Kagu would do his best to dry things out and basically do damage control, but it was hard to simply ‘dry’ something when one’s powers naturally called out a raging inferno. Some things got scorched. And then people started yelling about evil fire and how the waters had flooded to quell that and oh, how wonderful Mizu was and how grand it was for him to keep his brother’s temper in check!

One day, Kagu told himself, one day I’ll actually burn this world to the ground, and then they’ll be sorry they ever doubted me.

After all these years of the same promise, Kagu found that lie wasn’t quite as satisfying as it used to be.

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Notes: So I really love the whole theme of opposites - more specifically turning the expectations of those on their heads. So here, even though in the story it states that Kagu-tsuchi (fire) is the evil child and the second (water) was born to quell his rage I decided to flip the positions. Water is a lot more destructive than fire, after all. The second child wasn’t named, so since he’s the god of water I decided to call him Mizu, which is Japanese for water. Consequently, the title means water and fire.

Bib: “Izanagi and Izanami (Cont.)” from Romance of Old Japan, Part 1: Mythology and Legend (1917) by E.W. Champney and F. Champney. Web source.

BONUS STORY: My Immortal Yamato

Hi, my name is Yamato Takeru and I am descended from the gods themselves. I have long raven hair pulled into a topknot and I wear princely black silk robes tied with a black belt, but covered with manly armour so that I don’t get killed from all of the assassination attempts from those stupid preps that keep trying to kill me. I am a constant target because I am the 12th emperor of Japan. I am a gentle ruler but rule with an iron fist. The people all love me but know better to cross me, as I have fought and killed all of my enemies by myself with no help from my army whatsoever. It has been said that I am a terror on the battlefield. I don’t say so myself because I am humble and do not like to brag.

One day I felt like going for a manly swim in the surf of Suminoye. It is a large cliff with lots of big waves, although that doesn’t matter to me because of my huge muscles and ridiculous strength. Anyway I rode all day and night to reach Suminoye, but when I got there I wasn’t tired at all. Actually I was refreshed and ready to go swim in those huge waves so I sexily got down off of my horse and tied him to a tree (so he wouldn’t run away) and took off all of my clothes in a manly way so that I wouldn’t get them wet before diving into the sea. The waves were large but it didn’t matter to me, as my arms were so strong I easily pushed them out of my way and manfully swam really far - it was like swimming in a calm lake.

I was beginning to get bored so I crawled back onto the beach and laid down to get a tan when suddenly I saw the most beautiful women I had ever seen. I looked up and sexily leaned forward to see the hottie. It was…. a mermaid!

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Notes: So, this is not meant to be taken seriously. At all. This is basically what happens in the first bit of The Rescue of the Princess, but because the Labors of Yamato reminded me a lot of the terrible fanfiction My Immortal (which even has a trope page, it's that infamous) that I ended up rewriting the first bit as a parody of My Immortal.

Yeah, I may or may not be sleep deprived and egged on by friends who shouldn't be encouraging this kind of thing. Oh well, hopefully I'm not the only person who laughs at it.

Bib: "The Labors of Yamato ~ The Rescue of the Princess" from Romance of Old Japan, Part 1: Mythology and Legend (1917) by E.W. Champney and F. Champney. Web source.

Week 7 Reading Diary: Japanese Mythology

Reading Diary Week 7 - Japanese Mythology

• 日本！
• Izanagi and Izanami
• The man has to speak first? Interesting….
• Fire and Water, brothers - that could be fun to write on
• Yay, katabasis!
• Miraculous Mirror
• she weaves destruction, okay
• They tricked her out with her own image, haha
• Eight-Forked Serpent of Koshi
• Of course, who wouldn’t want their daughter to marry a god?
• The Adventures of Comb-Hime, that’d be a fun kids book
• Heaven-Descended
• Why do men always lose their head over pretty women? Jeez
• Hope Ninigi does better
• Hah, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned
• Stupid fire-test, should use a thing called trust next time
• Fortunate Fish-Hook
• When are brothers not rivals in mythology?
• How is Ho-wori breathing?
• At least she didn’t leave an eyeball for her kid to eat (1)
• Oh look, the pilgrimage from Korea is told, neat
• Rescue of the Princess
• I think “manfully” is my new favorite verb
• I may write on Yamato just to use some of these awesome descriptions
• Oh God, I could write it My Immortal style (2)
• These descriptions are seriously the best
• He keeps ‘clamouring lustilly’ and I WILL write this My Immortal style
• Oh God, he’s so vain (he probably thinks this song is about him)
• This is getting a bit like that time Thor disguised himself as Freyja
• “My sweet hussy?” - I don’t think I’ve laughed this hard in a while
• Grotto of Love
• I keep reading Yamato as if Agnus is screaming it in those last lines of the DMC4 cutscene
• Gods have the best pickup lines
• Yamato is totally Enoby - crap now I gotta write this
• Does he remind anybody else of Prince Charming (Not Sincere)? (3)
• Golden Apple
• Is someone going to steal the apple from him like in Gilgamesh?
• Looks more like the isle of the lotus-eaters
• Demon Boar
• Of course lots of heroes fight boars, those things mean business - there’s a reason people thought Adonis was an IDIOT (4)
• …… the weak spot, is the tail….. um, okay then
• I know you’ve got manly issues and all, but I think slaying a monster while it sleeps is a great plan - just sayin’
• Grass-Cleaving Sword
• All fear the Mighty Deer
• Totally thanks to Tacibana, girl needs more cred
• Sacred Sword
• I’m gonna start calling Tacibana Madame Butterfly
• …. she’s gonna strangle him with her hair? Sweet
• Gee Yamato, you’re really dumb
• Surprise Goddess!
• Surprise Bamboo!
• Surprise Puppies!
• Surprise Lake!
• Dragon
• Oh look, he finally gets it.
• Don’t go after her idiot
• Bout time you realized Tacibana was awesome
• See? She rocks
• Oh no, NEVER challenge the gods
• See? Bad idea, and now your wife’s dead. Great going.
• Faery Robe
• Well, he’s a smart fisherman, at least
• Thought it was going to go like lots of Selkie tales, where she has to live as his wife for years and years. This ending is much better
• Jewel of Heart’s Desire
• He makes a really good point
• She takes over? Awesome
• You totally pown everybody, then lose the jewel to a mermaid? Really?
• Quest of the Jewel
• Would anybody succeed if it wasn’t for the women?
• Oh yeah, she gets a scroll of nobility once she’s dead, and moves on as if it meant nothing to him. Bastard.
• M. Butterfly totally applies here (the play, not an abbreviation for the opera)
• Urashima
• Why would I want prose when there’s the poetry right here?
• Oh no, not another box you can’t open - that never works!
• I’m still in awe at the verbs this unit uses
• See? Told you - never open the box

Notes:

1 - I read a crazy Japanese Folktale for a class once where a man is told he can't watch while his wife gives birth. He doesn't listen (of course) and it turns out his wife is a dragon. She gives a ball to the baby and then (because they can't be together now) flies off. Years later the kid has sucked the ball to nothing and refuses to stop fussing, so the man visits his dragon-wife and asks for help. She promptly plucks out her other eye and gives it to him for the baby to eat. Weird-as-crap tale, and of course I can't find it now to link for y'all. Sorry.

2 - This is widely known as the worst fanfiction in the history of the universe. Seriously, it SUCKS. Poor spelling, worse plot, and a mary-sue written by an author who just doesn't get why people hate it. Manwithoutabody does a dramatic reading of it which rocks, so if you want a laugh go listen.

3 - From Into the Woods: near the end of Act II Prince Charming looks at Cinderella when she accuses him (rightfully) of infidelity and he states, "I was raised to be charming, not sincere."

4 - Adonis was pretty but not very bright. He was so stupid he decided to go boar hunting on his own - those things are evil and mean and will kill you, and so he died from a tusk to the groin.

Week 6 Essay: Justified by Means

The Anansi stories are nearly all about the same thing - gluttony. Anansi tricks people so that he is able to eat exorbitant amounts of food. Yet as most tales have him getting away with such actions, one comes to wonder if his actions are condoned more than they are condemned.

Yes, partly this may just be cultural differences - but while being able to eat a lot is desired, being a glutton is generally frowned upon. Gluttony is most often defined as too much, too fast, too often. Basically, it is an excessive intake. Our little spider fits this bill perfectly. He tricks people into letting him devour their food until he is gorged, and then  comes back to do it again the very next day (see The Gub-Gub Peas). Anansi is never satisfied with ‘just enough’, he must eat all that there is and more. More often than not he succeeds.

Anansi is constantly eating, but he is also constantly using his cunning. The tales make a point time and time again to state that Anansi uses his cunning, he thinks, he outsmarts. The only times he loses is when other watch his tricks and then turn the tides to outsmart him. Perhaps, with all the insistence on his cunning, that aspect is being glorified more than the end to which he applies it. Anansi is a glutton, but he is a cunning glutton. Anansi uses his brain to outsmart those around him so that he can get what he wants and that should be commended, even if what he wants isn’t exactly on the side of moral right. After all, everyone loves a good villain, even if none of us are likely to cheer him on.

Anansi wins in most of the tales, because his cunning is to be admired. So for Anansi I guess the means justify the end. Or, in this case, the beans.

 

(Joanna Gleason in "Maybe They're Magic"

From Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods

youtube)



Week 6 Storytelling: Let Down Your Rope

Once upon a time is the tale often told.

But never quite like this.

Once long ago there was a fair kingdom. This kingdom was placed upon the border of another great, sprawling kingdom. Both kingdoms were alike in wealth, dress, and manner, so of course they heartily disapproved of each other. Many small trifles were taken as great offences and held against the neighboring kingdom, and then one of real consequence arose. The Kingdom of Green accused the Kingdom of Grey for the theft of their princess. This had actually happened many years ago and was the fault of a witch and her tasty garden, but no one cared much for reason at this point. A spider being trampled would have been cause enough to start a war. And the two kingdoms went to it with reckless abandon.

This princess - you may all be quite familiar with her general tale by now - lived alone in the top of a tall tower. The witch had long since tripped on a root and fell to her death, but nobody thinks that makes the tale very interesting and so conveniently ignore it.

Now a starving peasant boy had been wandering far from home when he heard the distressed cries of the young princess. He stood below her window and asked what the matter was so sweetly that the princess immediately let him up into the tower by way of the rope ladder she had tucked away and told him all of her woes. The peasant immediately vowed to help her, seeing as how he had run from a burned down home to make his fortune as a thief. If she allowed him to hide in the tower with her, he would share the spoils and ensure she would never want again. The bargain was struck, for as young hearts are wont to do, the two orphans found themselves being drawn close by the strings of love.

One day after several months had passed, a prince came upon the tower. Being a prince and raised on such tales of maidens needing rescue he naturally decided to investigate. He could hear a sweet song being sung, and decided to hide himself nearby to see how he might approach the tower.

An hour later the thief came by, a satchel of food slung over his shoulders. He took a curious looking pipe out from his belt and placed it to his lips. To the prince’s shock, a voice issued forth from the pipe and sang:

“Darl’n, darl’n, sen’ down rope,

Sen’ down rope, I’m waitin’ for ya!”

Needless to say, the country pipe was jarring on the prince’s highly sensible ears. Yet the pain was easy to ignore as the prince watched a rope descend, which the green-clad thief then used to greet the fair maiden leaning out the window.

The prince saw this maiden and decided she must be a princess, and he must have her to wife. Well, if nothing else he wasn’t entirely wrong.

The prince left to his kingdom and gathered together the chief mages, tasking them to recreate the magic pipe. Time after time the best workers of magic in the land brought to him pipes more beautiful than the last, and time after time the song played was incorrect. Th royal mages could not understand why their prince would want a pipe that sang in such an inelegant drawl. Too focused on flattery and perfection, they missed what the song was supposed to play. Just as the prince began to despair, a mage from the enemy kingdom was brought in. The prince demanded the man create this pipe perfectly, or else his life were forfeit.

With such motivation, who could fail? The mage created the pipe just as the prince had asked, and this time when played the correct words tumbled out. Overjoyed, the prince not only issued pardon for the mage but gave him a position in the royal court. Ignorant of all protests at such action the prince rushed for his horse and immediately galloped into the forest where he had found the tower. Today he would win his lady love!

Perhaps he would have, for who can ignore the charms of a prince? Yet the kingdom was at war and food was getting scarce. The princess, however, did not want for any pleasure as her young rogue found thieving quite profitable under such circumstances and kept her and the orphans she tended to gather like a duck gathers chicks quite well fed. Knowing any day the war could turn its sights even on the isolated tower made the two lovers cautious and watchful.

So when the prince stood below the tower and played his pipe with the identical tune, the princess lowered the rope after a quick look and a pause to grab a large dagger.

The thief happened to be close at hand, and when he saw the prince going up the side of the tower cried out with his own voice, “Cut the rope, darl’n, cut the rope!”

Immediately the princess sliced the rope apart, and the advancing prince fell to his death. The thief dragged the body away to throw it in the nearby stream and then returned back to the tower. The princess let him up and the two devised a system of mirrors so she could see who was climbing the tower.

And so they lived happily ever after.

And for these two, that part is actually true.

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Notes: I thought it would be really funny to have Robin Hood and Rapunzel shack up together, so sue me. If you hadn't yet noticed, medieval fantasy is kinda my go-to. The original story I used was House in the Air, and it reminded me a lot of Rapunzel. As I'm running out of inspiration, I went for it. Same general plot line, just more fantastical.

Bib: Jamaica Anansi Stories by Martha Warren Beckwith (1924). Web source.
Image Info: Rapunzel illustration from 1961 children's book. Web source.

Week 6 Reading Diary: Jamaica Anansi Stories

Reading Diary Week 6 - Jamaica Anansi Stories

• So this is a continuation story, neat
• Wait, how does he NOT realize it’s the same person who tied him up and stole his mangos? Really? Stupid lion.
• So… are they all human in these tales?
• Yep, they’re apparently human
• Anansi only ever wants to eat.
• Oh no! Poor Lion :(
• …. So they’re animals? At least Lion is?
• More parallels, yay
• Is Anansi the only smart one in these tales? At least it’s not about food this time (hungry)
• Hey look, someone outsmarted him (somewhat)
• Oh, it’s apparently also spelled Hanansi.
• Never seen Anansi with a family before, neat.
• Candle-fly? Ooo, I gotta use that somewhere
• Hah, smart Tiger knows the game by now
• Getting the hang of the dialect now, just gotta keep singing “Jamaica, we have a bobsled team”
• My friend who took this class last year rewrote this one with cookies  and her roommate. It was really clever
• WAIT HE PULLED OUT HIS GUTS WHAT KIND OF HORROR STORY IS THIS?!!!!
• EWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEW!!!!!
• I can’t believe nyam means eat, is that where we got nom from?
• Uh-oh. This sounds bad
• Almost all of these are about eating, jeez
• Ananasi sounds a lot like Loki in this one
• O.O
• ……. Anansi is… not okay. He reminds me a lot of Loki
• Haha, Ram got his beard dumped in the Bog of Eternal Stench!
• I love how interconnected these things are
• It was only fresh beef? Well, in that case my pity is inspired
• Jeez it’s like a Marvel comic - nobody stays dead
• When are the times not hard?
• Hah, outsmarted by his own kid.
• Lots of these are retold in other units, kinda neat
• Okay, I’m just really confused with Anansi and the Tar-Baby
• Oh look, Anansi finally got tricked
• Once again, I like the way these are turning out now
• Anansi sure is a glutton
• Anansi is really a sadistic glutton
• Well, at least he’s good at running
• Anansi eats his food, and Fish thinks he’s a cousin?
• So he’s the first one to eat fish, okay then.
• Oh no, that’s a bad idea.
• This fire thing is great, really like this one
• That one was rather profound, actually
• Anansi is just plain evil.
• There’s a lot of marriage trials in these kind of tales
• This is sounding like the hole at the bottom of the sea song
• How can a butchered cow drink water?
• Haha, of course the Cat would.

 

"Jamaica we have a bobsled team" is from the movie Cool Runnings, about the first Jamaican Olympic bobsled team.

 

Bog of Eternal Stench is from the Jim Henson movie Labyrinth.