Reading Notes: American Indian Fairy Tales, Part B
The first story is a sort of story within a story. I like this style usually, but this one did not impress me. It was about a boy and girl who were the only humans in an entirely animal world. The boy was angry at the sun so he caught it in a noose. The dormouse, a huge creature at the time, was given the task of freeing the sun and almost all of him was burned away in the process of chewing through the noose. I liked the idea of two siblings being alone and sort of lost in the wilderness. I might try to combine this with the trickery of the coyote. Instead of the boy being angry with the sun, he could be mad at the coyote for tricking him.
The second story is about how a fisher brought summer, fall, and spring to an originally bitter world of winter. He opened a hole into the world above ours where it is always warm. He was killed for the act and remains in the stars. I like the idea of an origin story for the seasons. I might make up my own. I could write that men engaged in a competition with the sun of who could be brightest. All the men on the planet made large fires and the sun was threatened so he flared up strong, heating the earth. Now he does this for three months in the summer and rests for three months in the winter.
In the last story, a girl's mother is determined for her to marry a hunter. This bothers the girl greatly because all he thinks of is death. She leaves to be with the fairies in the woods on her wedding day instead of marrying the hunter. The attitude around the fairies was a little mysterious. I would like to play this up. My fairies may be ghosts instead. I liked the idea of the girl preferring to live in the woods with these beings rather than with the hunter. I would try to make my version a little spookier. Maybe there's an investigation of her kidnapping, and the reader doesn't know if she's been stolen or she ran away.
Image Information: Sun, Pixabay
Bibliography: American Indian Fairy Tales by W.T. Larned, link to the reading online.
The second story is about how a fisher brought summer, fall, and spring to an originally bitter world of winter. He opened a hole into the world above ours where it is always warm. He was killed for the act and remains in the stars. I like the idea of an origin story for the seasons. I might make up my own. I could write that men engaged in a competition with the sun of who could be brightest. All the men on the planet made large fires and the sun was threatened so he flared up strong, heating the earth. Now he does this for three months in the summer and rests for three months in the winter.
In the last story, a girl's mother is determined for her to marry a hunter. This bothers the girl greatly because all he thinks of is death. She leaves to be with the fairies in the woods on her wedding day instead of marrying the hunter. The attitude around the fairies was a little mysterious. I would like to play this up. My fairies may be ghosts instead. I liked the idea of the girl preferring to live in the woods with these beings rather than with the hunter. I would try to make my version a little spookier. Maybe there's an investigation of her kidnapping, and the reader doesn't know if she's been stolen or she ran away.
Image Information: Sun, Pixabay
Bibliography: American Indian Fairy Tales by W.T. Larned, link to the reading online.
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