Week 14 Storytelling:The Snake's Demands

“Girls! I’m going to the store!” called mother.

My sisters Ellie and Mary came running. “Do you girls want anything from the store?” She asked all three of us. Ellie and Mary promptly listed off at least twenty items each that they had to have. My mother then looked at me, but I shook my head and said all I wanted were some fresh flowers to go on my desk.

Two hours later mother arrived back at the house with bags upon bags of things she had picked up. I searched around the bags for a little but couldn’t find any flowers. When mother saw me searching she immediately realized she had forgotten to buy me flowers. She apologized to me so many times, and I told her it was ok, and that it wasn’t a big deal! She kept going on about how bad she felt, and decided she was going to go pick me some fresh ones from the forest that backed up to our house.

Another two hours went by, and I started to become very nervous. Mother should have been back by now. The sun would set in an hour.  I decided I must go looking for her.

I started off into the forest and just kind of wandered, not knowing which way she chose to go. After a little bit I saw some beautiful roses, and had the thought that maybe she was there picking some for me but got distracted or something. As I was walking over to the roses I saw a figure that appeared to be lying down. Silly mother must have decided to take a nap. It was strange though because there was a nice house in the background. As I got closer, though, she did not appear to be sleeping. There was a snake slithering all around her.

As I walked over the snake appeared to see me and started to slither towards me. I was a little frightened, but I needed to see if mother was ok. The snake stopped me before I got there and told me that my mother had been paralyzed in punishment for picking his flowers. I felt so terrible! Those were my flowers! I begged the snake to wake her up because it was my fault. He told me that if I completed a series of tasks for him he would give me the anti-venom for my mother.

Snake
From Wikipedia

The first task was to clear out all of the leaves and twigs that were strewn across his garden. That was easy enough, and I finished within ten minutes.  The next task was for her to cook him a nice homemade meal. This took a little longer, but not terrible long. I went inside the house and made him a nice plate of spaghetti and meatballs with a salad on the side. The snake seemed to really enjoy it, and then listed off my final task. It was to cut his head off with a sword. He showed me where it was, and gave me the cure for mother in advance once I had promise to do it.  I was a little hesitant because he did not seem all the bad, and I had never killed anything before, but I went ahead and did it to save my mother. Once I was done I rushed to mother and gave her the anti-venom. She started to wake up immediately!

AS mother was waking up I heard some rustling in the background, so I turned around to see what was going on. Where I had chopped the snake’s head off stood a beautiful man, and instead of the house there was a castle. The man started walking towards me, and when he got there he introduced himself as John. He said that my final task would be to marry him, or my mother would not fully recover. I agreed.

It turned out John was a great husband! We had a big feast and celebration after our wedding for all of our friends and family. My sisters did not seem too happy for me, but mother was and that was all that mattered. Today we are still happily married.

Author’s Note: I used The Three Roses as the original story. In the original the mother finds the roses on the way back from market, and realizes she forgot her daughter’s flowers, so she goes to pick some.  After she does so a basilisk appears. And tells her she must bring her daughter to him in payment for the roses. She goes home and brings her back. The basilisk makes her go through a series of tasks, then asks her to cut his head off. After she does so a snake appears, and asks her to do the same. After she has cut off the head of the snake a man appears, and tells her that the final task is to marry him. I chose to change the story a bit and put my own spin with just the snake. I liked her doing his house chores because I liked to think that the snake just needed a little help around the house, since he could not do it himself.

Bibliography: The Three Roses from The Key of Gold by Josef Baudis (1922).

Week 14 Reading Diary Continued: The Knight Bambus

For the rest of the Czech chapter I decided that I liked the story about The Knight Bambus as a possibility for storytelling. I liked that the gamekeeper was trying to do everything he could, but in the end he didn’t have what it took to stick with it. It is different than the happy endings that a lot of fairytales have. For my own story I would have a man who had never had a lot of money. He decided one day that he would go out a look for a new job to better support his wife and himself. He searched and found a man who said he would interview him for a position in his company. He went in and interviewed, and the man said he would call him tomorrow about the job. Tomorrow comes and the man does not get a call, so he decides to be proactive and go back to the firm to see if he got the job. When he gets there he sees the man who interviewed him walking down the hallways and going into what looked like a large conference room. He follow him into the room to talk to him about the job.  When he arrives he sees gold filling the entire large table in the conference room. The man tells him that he is a prince, but as a punishment for stealing he must give away all of his money. He tells the man that along with this money, he must give away his company that he built form the ground up. The poor man accepts everything, but the prince tells him he must tell no one. He especially must not tell his wife, for if his wife knew surely everyone would. He accepts all of these conditions, but is so excited when he gets home that he tells his wife of everything. The money is no longer there, and neither is the building that he was supposed to inherit.

Conference Room
From Wikipedia Commons

Week 14 Reading Diary: The Rose Bouquet

This week I chose the Czech Folktales unit to read because I wanted to change things up a little, and these didn’t sound like the typical folktales we always hear. I loved the first half of the unit, and especially loved the story of The Three Roses. It was very unexpected form beginning to end. When you think the daughter will get a reward, it seems she is about to be punished, but then eventually gets the reward after a strange series of events. I also thought the ending was funny, and just a little odd to be thrown in there. For my own story I would like to have a sister that wants to be brought any flowers that her mother thinks are pretty when her mother goes to the store. Her sisters have a long list of demands, though and she forgets while she is there. Her young daughter is very disappointed, so the mother goes out to a rose patch in the woods behind their house, and picks a glorious bouquet of roses for her dear daughter. Here she is bit by a snake, and is paralyzed. When the daughter goes in search of her the snake asks if that was her mother, and she confesses that the flowers were actually for her. The snake then has the girl do numerous tasks to ask forgiveness for stealing his flowers, and because he has no hands to complete these tasks. She finally has completed the tasks after three days, and the snake hands her the antivenom for her mother. He also hands her a set of keys to a castle that belongs to him. He says her final task is to take the keys and marry his human son. She does so, and everyone has a great time celebrating.

Roses
From Pixabay

Week 13 Storytelling: Ashley's Glasses

My name is Ashley. A few years ago I was in high school, and let me tell you it was horrible for the sot part. For the first three years I was either overlooked by everyone, or teased by those who didn’t see right through me. It was really mostly my stepsisters that picked on me, now that I think of it. They were terrible girls; so selfish and self obsessed. I was so lonely, and had very few friends. It may have been because I had enormous glasses that I used to wear. I also usually never wore my hair down or any makeup because it was just too much of a hassle for me in the mornings.  After those three years I was pretty sure everything would be the same for my senior year. I would’ve been ok with it at that point though because I was happy with my friends, and who I was.

Instead, there was a new kid on the first day. I remember I hadn’t yet seen him, but everyone was talking about him. We never really got many new kids. I was really excited to see what all the hype was about when it came to lunchtime, even though I knew it wouldn’t make any difference. When I saw him I was stunned by how drop dead gorgeous he was. If I were lucky enough to have him in any of my classes I would surely fail from my attention being elsewhere.

Of course, I found out next period that I would be failing math that year. Luckily he was sitting behind me, so it would be hard for me to look at him. I was also fairly good at math, so failing wasn’t really a possibility.

Over the next few weeks everything seemed relatively normal. Everyone ignored me, and I ignored them right back. We had a math test coming up within the next week, and I was busy studying for that. One morning I was so busy I ran out the door without a hairband to put my hair up. I knew this was going to be an off day as soon as I walked out the door.

That day in class the new kid actually talked to me (I found out his name was Derek). Derek asked me if I would help him study because he knew that I was the smartest in the class. I helped him all afternoon, and finally he started to be really picking up on everything! I was so excited that I must have left the room without my glasses. 

Glasses
From Pexels

The next day Derek was asking around to find me to give my glasses back, but no one seemed to be able to help him locate me.  Not even my own stepsisters knew they were mine. He had to wait until math period to give me my glasses, and when he did he asked me out on a date with him. Of course, I said yes! I was over the moon!

My stepsisters heard through the rumor mill, and it was quite funny to watch them so angry over this random new girl in Derek’s life. No one knew it was me, probably because no one knew me. We dated for months, and only when we made it official did everyone start to realize who the girl was that he was dating. People were so angry, like I had taken something from them, but we just ignored them.

From then on, no one messed with me, not even my stepsisters. Derek and I went off to college together, and dated for another four years, until he proposed to me on our graduation night. When I told my stepsisters they were so angry! SOne stubbed her toe so hard it bled, and the other got a nail in her heel from kicking the wall. It was quite the sight! Were getting married in about a month, and I couldn’t be happier!

Author’s Note: I decided to remake the Brother’s Grimm version of Cinderella, called Aschenputtel. In their story the girl weeps every night to the birds, and then they bring her a dress and shoes fit for the festival the prince is holding. Her stepsisters never realize that it is her until he shows up at their house with a shoe that will only fit her. He had put tar on the stairs to stop her from running away, but only was left with her shoe. Her stepsisters both cut off pieces of their feet to fit into the shoe, which is where their injuries in my story come from.

Bibliography: Aschenputtel from Walter Crane's Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm (1886)

Week 13 Reading Diary Continued: King Thrushbeard

Grace Kelly 

For the second half of this weeks reading of Crane’s storiesfrom Brother’s Grimm I really enjoyed all of the stories. My favorite, though, was King Thrushbeard because I had never heard this tale in particular. It seemed to have a very good lesson involved too. The princess in this story is very snooty, and makes fun of every suitor that comes to take her hand. She ends up getting what’s coming to  her when her father makes her marry a poor beggar. She then has to live that life, but eventually finds out the beggar is King Thrushbear, one of the men she made fun of. For my story I would like to have a young girl who is very beautiful, and gets whatever she wants as my main character. She makes fun of other people because they do not have as nice of things as she does, but eventually her parents kick her out because they are embarrassed by her selfish behavior. She soon learns how terrible her behavior has actually been, and sees that to have nice things takes a lot of factors, and that she was wrong to make fun of people for it. One day she is walking on the streets and sees her parents. She tells them that she has seen how she was wrong, and that she has changed. They will then allow her to move back in, and have everything she had before because she has learned the value in having these things.