Story: Odysseus, the Giant, and the Unicorns

(Unicorns by Arthur B. Davis, Wikimedia Commons)

            

Odysseus and his men travelled far and wide in search of the precious unicorn herd. They were sent off to find the unicorns because they possessed special magic that could cure the plague that was taking over the kingdom of Ithaca. Unfortunately, the men came across an obstacle along the way. The men eventually discovered the island of the giants, which terrified the men because they had only heard how vicious the giants could be. However, the unicorns had been rumored to roam the island of the giants, so the men had to be brave and explore further. 

            Odysseus stepped ashore on the dark brown sand and looked around, trying to see if anything potentially harmful was in sight. As he looked around, he saw overgrown grass and weeds everywhere, along with fallen fruit scattered on the ground. Odysseus and his men followed the path of scattered fruit, in the hopes of finding something that could lead them to the unicorn herd. They so badly wanted to find the unicorn herd, but they also wanted to avoid the giants on the island.

            After a few miles of scattered bananas, apples, pears, and coconuts, the men found a cave covered in vines. To the left of the cave was a teeny tiny opening, just small enough for a human to fit through. Because the hole definitely was not large enough for a giant to fit through, the men all agreed that the cave was safe, and that they should explore the cave further.

            One by one, the men crawled through the opening, and gasped as soon as they saw a giant hovering right above the cave opening. The first thing they noticed was the enormous eye the size of a large boulder in the middle of his forehead. Once they got passed his eye, they saw that he had blonde stringy hair, extremely crooked teeth, and wore a brown cloth that draped over his very plump body. The men had hoped the giant did not see them, but they knew immediately that he had.

            “Well, hello there!!!” shouted the giant while holding out his hand for a handshake. “My name is Greg!”

At first, the men thought they were being tricked, so they just stood there silently.

            Greg said, “Don’t just stand there. Say something back! That’s what new friends do… right?”

The men were so taken aback that they did not know how exactly to respond. After a minute or two of incredibly awkward silence, Odysseus stepped forward and introduced himself.

            “Uh… hi? My name is… Odysseus and these men are my noble friends,” he said.

            “Noble friends?! That’s incredible! I don’t have any friends, let alone noble ones,” Greg replied. Just as Greg said this, Odysseus noticed something sparkle in the distance… something resembling a unicorn.

            “Greg, do you happen to have any unicorns?” asked Odysseus.

            “Well, yes. But the unicorns aren’t my friends. I just keep them here because I get lonely,” replied the giant.

            “Could my men perhaps take a look?” asked Odysseus. Greg nodded and the men hesitantly walked past him towards the unicorns. The unicorns were white as snow, and had a subtle sparkling glow around them. Their magical horns, which were the source of the cure, were made of pure gold.

            One of the men asked Greg, “How much would it cost for us to take these unicorns? Our kingdom is in desperate need of their magic, and everyone will die if we return without it.”

            “I am never going to accept anything for the unicorns. If you take them, I will truly be alone forever,” said Greg. Odysseus motioned for his friends to come close so that they could talk without Greg overhearing. After a few minutes of whispering in a huddle, Odysseus stepped forward from the group.

            “We have a new proposal. What if you and your unicorns came with us back to the kingdom? We could be your friends and you could live with us and the unicorns in the castle,” said Odysseus.

            “Do you really mean that?!” Greg exclaimed. All of the men nodded and the giant swooped them up for a big hug. The men, Greg, and the unicorns travelled back to the kingdom, and the unicorns used their magic to cure the plague. The men became close friends with Greg, and they have lived happily ever since.

Author's Note: I based my story off of Homer's Odyssey. In the original story, Odysseus and his men were on a journey to go back home after the Trojan War, but come across the land of the Cyclopses who are really mean, aggressive, and lawless. They also eat humans. The land is incredibly worn down except for the wild sheep that roam the land along with the Cyclopses. The men come across a cave where one Cyclops was dwelling. The Cyclops keeps the men hostage and eats them one by one over time. Eventually, the remaining men are able to escape by hiding between herds of sheep. For my own story, I wanted to refer to the Cyclopses as giants, and change the personality of one of the giants so that he would be lonely instead of mean and aggressive. In addition, the original story did not include a plague that was killing the people of the kingdom. The original story also did not include unicorns, but I added those plot lines myself to make the story more unique. I chose the image that I did because this one seemed like a historic painting that depicted unicorns as opposed to the other modern pictures that I found that kind of look tacky. I felt that the image added another element to the overall story.

Bibliography: Homer's Odyssey, as translated into English by Tony Kline; link to the reading online

Reading Notes: Homer's Odyssey, Part A

Bibliography: Homer's Odyssey, as translated into English by Tony Kline; link to the reading online

(Odysseus and the Sirens)

-The land of the Cyclopses is only surviving because of the immortal gods. Without them, the land wouldn’t thrive the way it does

-Wine: key point… might change to another type of drink

-The giant tending to his flocks… could be changed to a different task

-The giant is mean and unwelcoming. Could altar his personality and make him fear Zeus or idolize him

-Giving him the wine to soften him up

-Olivewood stake was the main weapon, along with the wine

-Change their purpose of being there

-Used sheep to escape

-Make the giant sad that they left, instead of angry

-Maybe make the giant female

-The loyal friends shouldn’t die… but rather just stay behind as prisoners

-Change the animals around the Circe’s house

-Make Circe a long lost friend

-Alternate ending for this first half

Growth Mindset

(Made with Cheezburger)

I had never heard of Carol Dweck or the growth mindset before this assignment. I know for sure that when I was growing up, I would get frustrated if I wasn't making all A's. However, as I got older, I started enjoying the challenges in my classes and would take all AP classes so that I was constantly being challenged and growing. The same goes for dance- if I wasn't being challenged, then my time was being wasted because I wasn't improving and growing. Especially when it comes to things like math, it can take me a while to understand the concepts so it just takes longer to fuller grasp them. Because of that, I have learned to be more patient when I am learning new things. I do think that keeping the growth mindset in mind and learning more about it throughout this semester would be beneficial. It has been proven to be a helpful mindset to encourage students learn more and challenge themselves more, so I would like to apply that kind of mindset towards all of my classes this semester. 

Starting the Semester

(Calvetica Calendar (iPhone 4) by: Junya Ogura)

My best advice for getting organized for the whole semester is to write all of the due dates for classes in either a calendar, planner, or phone calendar. I personally use the calendar app on my phone/laptop because I have really bad handwriting, so it helps me keep everything nice and neat. I am in 4 other classes, so it helps me to have everything color-coded in my calendar. For example, I have made this course's color blue, so everything on my calendar relating to this class will be colored blue. Having everything readily available on my phone and laptop helps me stay on top of all of my assignments and knowing when they are due every week!

Reading Options

Ancient Greece - Homer's Iliad: I learned about this in my Latin class in high school so I figured it would be interesting to actually read more about it.

Ancient Middle East - Ancient Egypt: One of my favorite things to learn about is tales of gods and goddesses, but I only learned about Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, so I would like to learn about the Egyptian gods and goddesses. 

(Barque of the Sun-God, Ra)

African Tales - Nigeria: I love animals, so when I saw that this talked about animals I was immediately intrigued. 

Specific Tribes - Inuit (Eskimo): This one focuses on tales of the polar world, which I don't know much about, which is why I chose it. I'm wanting to read and learn more about folk tales that I don't know anything about, so I'm excited to read about these in a month or so. 

My Storybook Favorites

I really enjoyed looking through all of the different Storybooks and seeing how different students utilized different methods of storytelling along with different ways of presenting their Storybooks. Below are three of my favorite Storybooks that I found while looking through the collection:

“Ghost Tales of a Traveller”: The topic isn’t something that I knew about, but I was intrigued by the title of the Storybook. At first I wasn’t sure where the Introduction of the Storybook was, because it wasn’t on the home page, but other than that I was interested in reading the stories. The layout and design of the page was good. She utilized images in her Storybook so that they added to the story instead of being distracting. The overall theme of the page worked really well with the style of the stories. My favorite aspect of this Storybook was the whole “Dear diary…” concept. It made for an interesting, constant theme throughout the Storybook.

"Homer and Garden Television": This was by far my favorite Storybook out of the collection. The content creator took a modern concept and gave it a unique twist to make it relate to this class in such a clever way. The concept/topic was familiar to me because my roommates watch HGTV pretty much on a daily basis, so I understood all of the references to the television network. The introduction did a great job of explaining the topic and catching my attention so that I wanted to go read the stories. The design of the page goes well with the theme of the Storybook topic. The author utilized images well throughout the Storybook. Overall, I thought this was such a clever idea and was very well executed. 

("The Return of Persephone" by Frederic Leighton)

"Tales of the Watering Hole": The topic was unique and interesting. The title did a good job of letting me know what the Storybook was about. The introduction helped explain the topic and made me want to read the rest of the Storybook. The design and layout of the Storybook was simple, but not boring. In regards to image usage, I personally would have placed them either in the middle of each page or at the very top instead of the very bottom, but that’s just my preference. Overall, it made for an interesting Storybook.
 

Introduction to a Traveller

Hi, my name is Kaitlin Manis and this is my Mythology and Folklore blog. I am a senior majoring in journalism and minoring in International Studies.

I love writing, travelling, and photography. I went to Italy when I was a sophomore in high school, and I would love to go back there someday. I would also like to go to France, England, and Spain in the future.

My favorite movies are The Dark Knight, The Devil Wears Prada, and 10 Things I Hate About You. The best movie that I saw recently was Burnt, with Bradley Cooper. My favorite types of TV shows are reality TV shows and cooking shows (basically anything on Bravo or the Food Network).

My favorite music genre is alternative or singer/songwriter. My favorite bands/artists are Coldplay, Two Door Cinema Club, The Killers, Death Cab for Cutie, Lewis Watson, and Joe Brooks. I love going to concert with my dad and sisters because we all share the same music tastes (my mom only likes country music). I absolutely hate country music.

I am graduating in December and am hoping to find a job in Dallas that involves event planning or communications of some sort. My family is from the Dallas area so I would like to stay in that area since I have a really close relationship with them.

The only pet I have ever owned was a fish, which unfortunately passed away. However, I would like to have two cats when I graduate.

My favorite places to visit are Albuquerque, New Mexico, New York City, and Destin, Florida (or Santa Rosa Beach, 30A, or Rosemary Beach. They are all in the same area). I love exploring new and old places, so I enjoy going to these places at least once a year.

("432 Park Ave New York City Skyline" by: Anthony Quintano)

My favorite food of all time is pizza. My favorite drink is chocolate milk. I pretty much eat like a five year old on a daily basis. I am not a great cook but I am an excellent baker. I used to want to have my own Food Network show when I was in elementary school.

As I mentioned earlier, my hobbies include writing, travelling, and photography. I also love going to the movies and taking naps.

Well, that’s a little bit about me. I’m excited to get to know more people in this class throughout this semester!

Story: The Lion and the Mouse

(Photo: "Male Lion on Rock" by William Warby)

Once there was a mouse and a lion. The mouse and the lion were best friends. The lion was in charge of all of the other animals in the land, except for the rats. The rats were the ultimate enemy. The mice were essentially the “guards” and were supposed to fight the rats when necessary. There had been an ongoing war for years, and the rats would never surrender. Although it seems silly that the land relied on the mice to protect them, the lion trusted the mice because they had really big hearts.

One day, the mouse and the lion were napping in the forest, and the rats were setting up traps to catch both the lion and the mouse. A few hours later, the rats had finished setting up the traps, and the lion and the mouse woke up. They were taking a stroll by the main river where they usually did, and SNAP- they were caught by the traps. The rats were planning to take the lion and the mouse to their lair. The lion and the mouse were scared, but did not show an ounce of fear, for they had hope that everything would be okay in the end.

The fish in the river saw what had happened and they started telling the turtles. The turtles told the snakes and the snakes told the birds and the birds told the wolves and the wolves told the bunnies. All of the animals in the land came together to search for the rat lair.

In a deep cave, the lion and the mouse were trying to negotiate their way out of the rat lair.

“Why are you filled with so much hate?” asked the mouse.

“It is so much easier to hate than it is to love. Us animals aren’t meant to get along. A lion isn’t supposed to be friends with a little mouse,” said one of the rats.

“If you put your hatred aside, we could all be friends,” said the lion.

And just as the lion had said this, all of the animals in the land had found the lair. The rats were taken aback by all of the animals willing to sacrifice their lives for the lion and the mouse.

“See? All of the other animals in the land are friends. No matter how big or small they are, they all have big hearts,” said the lion.

The rats were amazed at how easy it was for all of the other animals to look past their differences and be friends. The rats released the lion and the mouse, and decided to put aside their hatred once and for all.

And from that moment on, the lion, the mouse, the rats, and the animals were all friends and the land was finally at peace.



Author's note: My story was based off of the fable, "The Lion The Mouse," where there is a lion who says that a mouse would never be able to save the lion, but actually does when the lion is captured. My spinoff was basically just making the lion and mouse friends, the rats the enemy, and love being the ultimate solution.


Bibliography: "The Lion The Mouse" from the Fables of Aesop by Joseph Jacobs (Web Source)

Destin: One of my Favorite Places

One of my favorite places is Destin, Florida. My family has gone there almost every summer since I was in 6th grade. We have made so many great memories there, so I always look forward to going back every year. 

(Overlooking the beach and ocean in Destin, Florida: Wikimedia Commons)

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