STORYTELLING WITH ANTO

Years ago, when no men existed on the earth, the first man was curled up inside a beach pea pod. He slept there for four days, and on the fifth, he stretched out every limb ad broke out of his pod. He fell unto the earth, where he walked around for several hours, perhaps even days, disoriented. After some time had passed, he came across a large black bird called Raven. The bird pushed up his beak and instantly became a man.  "What are you? Where have you come from?" Asked Raven, as he quizzically looked at Man.  "I am a man, I came from that pea pod over there" he answered, pointing at the pod.  "I made that, but I did not know something such as you would come out of it," he paused, as if wondering how such a strange creature had even come to be. "Have you eaten?" "No, I have not, I only drank from the liquid at the beach." "Ah, you drank water, eat this then" Raven handed him some berries, which Man ate and soon

The First Woman Three Young Eskimo Women A long time ago, there were many men but no women, only one woman was known to live in the Southland. A young man from the Northland traveled South and married the woman, and thought to himself that now he had a wife whilst the headsman's son had none. Then the son of the headsman also traveled South and started pulling the woman away by her shoulders in the middle of the night. The husband awakened and also tried to pull the woman away, only by the feet, thus they ripped the woman in half. The son of the headsman took the upper body North, whilst the husband remained south with the lower body. They both then created wooden parts to complete the woman's body. The woman in the South was a really good dancer, but could not do fine needlework for her hands were wooden. The woman in the North could do fine needlework but was a terrible dancer because of her wooden legs. Even to this day, northern women are skillful with their hands,

Raven's Creation Illustration from Judson's Book The first man came from inside a beach pea pod. He remained inside the pod for four days, then on the fifth, he stretched out and fell down unto the earth. He walked around and ran into Raven, a large black bird who could push his beak up and turn into a man. Raven explained that he had created the pod but did not know that a man would come out of it. Raven then fed berries and water to Man and then created several animals from clay. He shaped them carefully and told the man how plentiful they would be, he then would bat his wings four times and they would come to life. Raven then noticed that Man needed a companion, therefore he took more clay and shaped a young woman similar to Man, and use grass to add hair to her head. He let her dry fully, thus giving her a fair completion, and then batter his wings four times, bringing her to life. He then gave the young woman to Man to be his companion. Story source: Myths and

There once was a beautiful woman name Afiong. All of the men of the land and lands far beyond were interested in her; they all tried to woo her, but one by one they were shut down. Afiong's parents tried relentlessly to convince her to take a man, they even arranged several marriages for her, but it was useless. Afiong refused each and every proposal, for she thought herself far too beautiful for any of them, and worthy only of the finest specimen of manhood.  Rumors of the woman's beauty spread all over the world, even reaching the far corners of the spirit land. The Skull, a spirit known for his ugliness, heard of Afiong and deeply longed and to meet her. He was ashamed of his looks, so he traveled all throughout the spirit land asking for body parts. One friend offered him his legs, another his face, then eyes, torso, arms, until his body was complete and he looked like the most handsome young man. The Skull then traveled to Afiong's country, and for days he watched

The Lighting and the Thunder Story source:  Folk Stories From Southern Nigeria  by Elphinstone Dayrell (1910). Lighting Wikimedia Commons In the olden days, the lighting and the thunder lived among the people, but the king made them live far away from everyone. The thunder was an old mother sheep and the lighting was her son, a ram that often burned house and knocked down trees, even killed people. Whenever the lighting did any damage, the thunder would call for him very loudly, but alas her did not care. The people then complained to the king, who ordered the thunder and lighting to live out of town in a bush. This did not last long, for the ram burned down the forest, and the flames would sometimes spread to the farms. The people complained once again, so the kind vanished them from the earth, thus now when the lighting becomes angry he does damage from the sky, and soon his mother's loud voice can be heard. 

The Disobedient Daughter Who Married a Skull Front view of Skull There was a young woman named Afiong who was very beautiful but also very vain. Many men wanted to marry her and her parents tried to arrange it, but she refused them as she wanted a young, strong and good looking man to love her properly. The Skull, who lived in the spirit land, heard of the woman and wished to possess her. He borrowed several body parts to make up a fine young man and went to find Afiong. He admired her, and when she saw him, she fell in love with him and invited him to her house. The Skull met Afiong's parents and asked for her hand in marriage, at first they refused but eventually agreed. After two days, he decided he wanted to take Afiong back to her country, which her parents tried to prevent her from doing but failed. After they had gone, the father consulted his Ju Ju man, who discovered that Afiong had married The Skull from the spirit land and would soon be killed. When Afiong and The

Public Domain Vectors I am quite happy with my progress in the class so far. I have kept up with all of the assignments, I only missed one but made up the points with some extra credit. Overall, I am really enjoying this class, I enjoy the reading and the storytelling posts, but most of all I love working on my project. Every time I have to work on my project I get super excited, I love doing research for it and writing the introduction and stories, so I really hope people actually enjoy reading it. I do think I should take more advantage of the extra credit opportunities, so that is something I would like to incorporate more during the second half of the semester.  I am lucky enough that I have a pretty light semester credit-wise, so I am not as burned out as other people, but I am still quite tired and looking forward to the spring break, which is my biggest motivator at the moment (hence the picture!). I hope I will continue to enjoy this class and that I will keep up wit

Every time I get an email about a new comment on my blog, I get super excited. I love reading about what the other students think about my stories and project. How useful the comments are varies a lot, sometimes I'll receive a very detailed comment that points out specific areas for improvement, but most of the time the comments are quite vague and praise the story without offering any new advice. I think this may be because most people do not want to be harsh and point out things wrong in the writing or narrative, which I understand, but it also means that I don't know what to improve. I also think that the assignments about how to give feedback, though well-intentioned, do actually more harm than good. This is because we are so focused on covering the requirements of the WWW or the TAG that we don't actually provide useful feedback.  Personally, I think the feedback I leave is, for the most part, very detailed and hopefully useful. I try to give out the type of feedb

Medusa Mirror of Memory by Incantata So far, I am pretty happy with my blog and the work I have done for the class. I have played a lot with the settings of the blog and have changed the theme quite a few times, so I am satisfied with the design I currently have. As for the reading and writing assignments, I have realized that the schedule I originally had did not work completely for me, so instead of doing both readings on Monday, I have been trying to do part A on Monday and then part B on Wednesday. As for the storytelling, I have noticed that I tend to leave it to the last minute, as I do with the project assignments, so I need to rethink how I organize my time. That being said, I am still very proud of the stories I have written and have been able to keep on top of the work.  I think some of my favorite assignments so far were the microfiction I did on Medusa's story and the letter I wrote for the Ancient Egypt unit, which apparently many people liked as well. The pic

Why Dog and Cat are Enemies There once was a couple that owned a ring that brought luck to its owners by making sure they always had enough fortune to live on, however, the couple did not know this. Unknowing of its properties, they sold the ring and quickly became poor to the point of hunger. They had a dog and a cat that also grew hungry, so they met to try and help their owners in any way. The dog figured out that they needed to get the ring back, but this was already locked in a wooden chest, so he told the cat to catch a mouse and make it gnaw a hole in the chest to reach for the ring. The cat did as told, and when she had the mouse together they went to find the ring, only to find a broad river in the way. Since the cat could not swim, the dog carried her on his back and waited for her to return. The mouse so gnawed the box, and as soon as he had given her the ring, she began her journey back to the river where the dog once again helped her across. On their way back, the dog h