Caitlyn's Corner

Ragnarok For this last section of reading, I finished up Norse Mythology  by Neil Gaiman.  This was Chapters 16 and 17: Th Last days of Loki and Ragnarok.  Ragnarok was such an awesome read.  I just watched the Thor Ragnarok movie the other day, so it was really interesting hearing characters names that I remember from parts in the movie.  I feel like the movie definitely had a much more light-hearted feel to it than the original story.  This story is just filled with epic events, battles, and deaths.  I really loved reading it. I loved every minute of this book.  It made me fall in love with Gaiman's writing and also Norse Mythology.  I will definitely be reading more of both in the future.  I am so glad I was able to read this book for this class.  I definitely would not have taken as big of an interest in researching different parts of it if I had just read it for pleasure.

For the sixth part of Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology , I read chapters 14 & 15: Hymir and Thor's Fishing Expedition and The Death of Balder. The story of Thor's fishing trip was a really awesome tale.  It is one of those mythology stories that is larger than life, literally.  Thor is fishing with a giant, using a whole ox head as bait, and the entire scale of everything is ridiculous.  When Thor first reaches Hymir's home, a large giantess is preparing food.  Gaiman describes the scene as she is cutting "onions the size of boulders and cabbages the size of boats"  I really loved reading this story.  It is such a classic tale and is often found in art from the Norse.  I loved Gaiman's version of it too.  He blended together the telling from a few different sources and the result is wonderful.  This story is just so good. I think it would be really fun to tweak this into a story of my own and find images depicting the original.  I h...

For part five of Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology, I read chapters 12 & 13: The Apples of Immortality and The Story of Gerd and Frey. Apple In the story about Thor's journey to the giants, Gaiman ended it with Thor thinking about how even he couldn't defeat old age.  In the next story, The Apples of Immortality, we hear a story of when Loki led Idunn, the keeper of the Apples of Immortality, to her kidnapping.  When she is taken, the gods no longer have their immortality and began to age.  This story is really interesting and I really want to work with it for a story this week.  I also really like how Gaiman has all the stories leading into each other so the book reads like a novel and less like a collection of random tales.

For Part 4 of Norse Mythology  by Neil Gaiman, I read through Chapter 11: Thor's Journey to the Land of Giants.  This story is a tale of Thor, Thor's servant, and Loki visiting Jotenheim. The giant Skrymir helps them find the huge fortress, Utgard. Upon reaching Utgard, the giant there, Utgartha-Loki tells them that only those who are the best of something are allowed in his city.  The travels then proceed to go head to head against a competitor in the task they feel they are the best of the best at.  Loki competes in eating the quickest, Thor's servant competes in running the fastest, and Thor, of course, competes as the strongest.  Thor and his companions are angry and confused when they are defeated by Utgartha-Loki's champions.  It isn't until the next day that Utgartha-Loki explains who they were really competing against. This story was very interesting.  At first, it seemed like another story about the gods easily defeating their enemies and be...

For this third part of Norse Mythology  by Neil Gaiman, I read through Chapters 9 & 10: Freya's Unusual Wedding & The Mead of Poets. Freya's Unusual Wedding begins with Thor discovering his hammer is missing.     Mjölnir  is the hammer of the gods.  Thor goes to Loki for help in finding who took his hammer.  Loki eventually discovers that a giant had stolen it and would only return it to Thor in exchange for Freya's hand in marriage.  The gods all gather to decide what should be done about returning the hammer of the gods.  Freya is very against marrying this awful giant, rightfully so.  Loki comes up with a plan of dressing Thor as a bride and putting a veil over his face to pretend that he is Freya coming to marry the giant.  Loki disguises himself as a handmaiden and off they travel to meet the giant.  Hilarity ensues as Thor pretends to be a graceful bride and Loki has to keep covering for his mistakes, espec...

For Part 2 of my journey with Norse Mythology  by Neil Gaiman, I read Chapters 7 and 8: The Master Builder & The Children of Loki.  So far, these are my two favorite stories.  Stone Wall The Master Builder is a tale of a mysterious stranger that comes to Asgard and tells the gods that he can build their wall for them that could keep out even the strongest and largest of their enemies.  In return, he wanted the hand of Freyja as his payment.  The gods decided to set some more terms.  They demanded that he finish the wall in one season and with no help other than his horse.  If the wall was not finished by the end of this season, he would receive no payment.  The Master Builder agreed and he began working on the first day of the new season.  The gods became fearful of losing their dear Freyja when they discovered how quickly the stranger was able to build.  Loki ends up helping the gods with his usual trickery, saving their Frey...

For me last reading, I decided to check out Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman. I bought the audio book for this and I absolutely love it.  Neil Gaiman narrates the stories and he has an awesome voice for it!  This book is a bit long, so I will be reading this for my last several reading posts.  Part 1, I read through Chapters 1 through 6.  This included the introduction and I am so glad I read it! I usually skip intros, but this one was adorable.  Gaiman wrote this book so his son would fall in love with Norse Mythology just like he did as a kid. My favorite story from this part was The Treasure of the Gods (Chapter 6).  This story tells of how the gods got their favorite and most memorable treasures.  It tells us how Odin got his spear that has special powers, like how any oath made on this spear cannot be broken.  It also tells us how Thor got his hammer.  This is one of the most famous objects owned by the gods.  There is even another ...

Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There   has been one of my favorite reads this semester.  Lewis Carroll's imagination is a wondrous place filled with colorful worlds and odd characters.  The two Alice books are so creative and I highly recommend them to everyone. My favorite section of the second book was definitely The Jabberwocky . I have read this poem before and thought it was really clever.  I first read it in high school, but never really paid much attention to it.  Then, when I met my boyfriend, I ended up reading it again.  My boyfriend uses "Slithy Toves" for his user name on a few things and I finally asked him what it was from.  He immediately pulled out a copy of Through the Looking Glass , opened it to The Jabberwocky  and said, "This is one of my favorite poems.  It's filled with nonsense words that have no meaning, but the reader instantly has this image in their head of the creature."  He was total...

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There  by Lewis Carroll (1871) is the reading unit that I decided to check out this week.  I thought this would be a good one to start with, since I read the first book last week.  I have never really read much of Carroll's works before these two weeks, except a handful of his poems like the Jabberwocky.  I have really enjoyed being able to read these two books and I have mad respect for Carroll after reading them.  He has amazing skills at bringing to life these crazy worlds with such colorful imagination. My favorite bit from the second book was The Walrus and The Carpenter .  This is a little story that Tweedledee tells Alice.  I remember in the Disney animated movie of Alice in Wonderland, they included this story.  I didn't ever realize how dark the story really is until I read the original in the book.  This story tells of how the Carpenter and the Walrus get a family of small oysters ...

For extra reading over this week and next week, I decided to do the  Beowulf Unit .  I actually read Beowulf my senior year of high school, but decided I wanted to reread it.  This story was actually one of my favorites from that year.  I think it was because it was one of the first stories that I went and did a lot of research over just for fun.  I was curious about the history of it: how old it was, translations, and anything else surrounding this epic. My favorite part from the first half is definitely The Wanderer's Song .  This is where we first learn of the torments from the monster Grendel.  I feel like this section is where we begin to feel excitement.  From the descriptions of the monster, you can tell the story is about to take off and become an exciting adventure. I really love how beautiful the language is in this translation.  The descriptions and imagery really help the reader feel like they are a part of the story.  Yo...

Finishing up the reading for this week, I realized that I should have read this book ages ago.  I absolutely love the story and I really love Carroll's writing style.  I did a little Wiki Trail over this week's reading when I first started reading the book and found some interesting facts about Lewis Carroll and allusions to his real life in the book.  I am so glad I did that research before reading, because it was neat finding the characters in the book that had deeper meaning. The Mad Hatter by Sir John Tenniel My favorite part of the book was the chapter about A Mad Tea-Party.  All of the characters in Carroll's book are so colorful, but none compare to the Mad Hatter and his party.  I just love how ridiculous everything is and I kept picturing the animated characters from Disney's version.  I think for a story this week, it would be fun to do something with the tea party.  Either rewriting the characters into a different setting or creati...

For this week's reading, I decided to check out the  Alice in Wonderland Unit  from  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865).  This story has always been a favorite of mine growing up.  The Disney movie will always hold a special place in my heart.  I'm fairly certain I have seen it upwards of 100 times over the years.  Despite loving the story so much, I have never actually read Carroll's book.  When I saw it listed as an option for reading this week, I immediately started reading it.  While reading it, I became very curious about where Carroll got his ideas for the characters.  I ended up having a very long Wikipedia Trail over different facts in the book. I talked about a few of these articles in my Wiki Trails post this week. It is rumored that he based Alice off of a daughter of a family he befriended , but many think the book was simply dedicated to her.  I learned that the Dodo is supposed to be based off o...

Image: Celtic Knot For some extra reading, I continued reading in the Celtic Fairy Tales Unit .  As I discussed in last week's extra reading, I am loving these tales and the fact that some come from my ancestors makes me want to hang onto every word.  My favorite part about reading these stories is the names.  Gaelic names have always held a special place in my heart because of my mom.  My mom named me Caitlyn because she loves Gaelic names, but she changed up the spelling from the traditional "Caitlin," so that I'd be a little more unique. T  I think my favorite story from the second half of the unit is Beth Gellert . This story is really beautiful, but what I love about it most is all of the names in it.  I nerded out and looked up the pronunciation for each name because the spellings are always crazy when it comes to Celtic names.  I think it would be fun to rewrite this story, but find a way to keep the names in.  I feel like the names r...

Continuing the Eskimo Folk Tales Unit, I'm discovering that these people have a very interesting and creative sense of imagination.  My favorite story that I read from this section was The Eagle and the White Whale .  This story tells of a family of brothers and sisters.  The brothers complain that the sisters have not found husbands yet, so one of the brothers sends them off to a white whale and an eagle.  After some time, they all missed each other so the brothers first saved the sister with the eagle.  Then they shot the eagle down when it came to retrieve his bride.  Next, they went for the sister with the white whale.  They made a whale hunting boat and when the sister escapes the white whale and reaches her brothers, they use their boat to out run the whale and reach the land on the other side.  This story really caught my attention, because I kept expecting something to go terribly wrong and one or both sisters would be lost.  I think ...

Last semester, I had a homework assignment for my Phonology class over Greenlandic Eskimo .  While doing this assignment, I had to do a little research for background information on the language, including some facts about the speakers.  During this research, I found that these people have a beautiful culture and I really wanted to learn more, but never really got the chance.  That's why I decided to check out the  Eskimo Folk Tales  unit.  The little background information at the top of the unit page explained where these stories came from and the dialect that the recorder spoke,  Kalaallisut , was the one my previous assignment was over.  Reading these stories helped me feel like I was experiencing and understanding another huge part of their culture.  I only with that I had studied enough of the Greenlandic Eskimo language last semester so that I could experience these stories in their original language.   Image info My ...

For the extra reading this week, I decided to read the Celtic Fairy Tales unit, and I fell in love with all of these wonderful stories.  My favorite from the first half was  Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree  from  Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1892).  In this story, the mother, Silver-Tree goes to a trout in the river and asks if she is the most beautiful to which it tells her that actually her daughter, Gold-Tree is the most beautiful.  Silver-Tree can't stand this and decides that Gold-Tree must die so that she will remain as the most beautiful.  The story carries on very similar to Snow White, with the mother trying repeatedly to kill her daughter. She even poisons Gold-Tree and the prince that Gold-Tree had married refuses to bury her because she is too beautiful.  Eventually, the prince's second wife saves Gold-Tree from the poison and then tricks Silver-Tree into killing herself the next time she shows u...

Image: Owl Reading through the Cherokee Myths, I began to fall in love with my ancestors' people.  These stories are rich with imagination and you can easily picture them being told around campfires or to small children as they fall asleep.  My favorite story from this section was  The Owl Gets Married   from  Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney (1900), In The Owl Gets Married , a young woman's mother tells her only to marry a good hunter.  When a suitor comes along asking for the girl, the mother inquires if he is a good hunter and he says he is.  The mother allows her daughter to marry him.  As the days go by, the man leaves each morning to hunt and fish and is gone all day, but only brings a few fish or scraps home each night, saying that he didn't have any luck.  The mother is suspicious and tells her daughter to follow him.  When the young woman follows the man the next day as he leaves to hunt, she sees him turn into an...

Image: Fire For the reading this week, I decided to check out some of the Cherokee Myths.  I chose Cherokee because two of my great grandparents were full blood Cherokee, but I still don't know a lot about their culture.  I really loved reading all of these stories.  All the creative ways they have explained the origins of different things, like the shape of the land or certain characteristics of animals.  My favorite of these stories was The First Fire   from  Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney (1900).  The story is really beautiful as it tells how fire came to the Cherokee lands.  It tells how each of the animals tries to go and retrieve the fire, but fails and is changed.  I think it would be really fun to try and rewrite this story with some sort of twist.  I think it would be a good challenge to try to write this story in a more modern setting or maybe just with different animals and come up with ways in which they are chang...

This week I read some of the Japanese Fairy Tales and a couple were very fascinating to me.  The first one that caught my attention was The Two Frogs .  The two frogs live in opposite cities, Kioto and Osaka. They each wish to see the other city so they set out on a long journey.  After climbing a mountain halfway, they meet each and explain their journey.  They decide to hold on to each other and stand up as tall as they can, pointing their noses towards the city they are traveling to.  They do this thinking they will see the city they are trying to journey to and decide if it is worth it.  However, a frogs eyes are in the back of its head so they simply looked at their own cities and decided it wasn't worth the journey and they went home.  I just thought this story was very cute and it would be interesting to figure out a way to retell it with a more modern twist. 'The Two Frogs'  The Violet Fairy Book  by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H....

Image: Golden Apple In section B of the Japanese Mythology stories, I was really interested in "The Labors of Yamato - The Golden Apple."  Jofuku searches for the Isle of Life Eternal for the Golden Apple and after years of sailing, he finds it.  He stayed on the island for 100 years and never felt any passage of time.  One day he wanted to leave and he had a stork fly him away from the island and back home.  Upon returning, Jofuku become the Khan of Khans.  This is not the ending I was expecting to come from this.  As I read the story, I expected Jofuku to run into some trouble upon trying to leave the island with the Golden Apple.  I think I was expecting the immortality to not work unless he was on the island.  It would give the lesson that you cannot be selfish in wanting eternal life and also have the happiness of being with those you love and be worshiped. "The Labors of Yamato - The Golden Apple" from Romance of Old Japan, Part I: My...