Robbie Johnson's Mythology and Folklore Blog

 The Frog, the Bee, and the Bird This story intrigued me right from the start. I knew this story would be right up my alley based off of the name. I love these types of stories because there is always some sort of teamwork or crazy twist involved that really makes the story what it is. In this particular story, the 3 animals came together to kill an elephant that accidentally knocked the birds eggs out of the tree and killed them. I love the reason for the revenge, but they never explained why the frog and the bee wanted to help. If I were to rewrite this story, I would add some back stories for the frog and the bee and what the elephant did to them to make them want to kill him. I can very well see myself rewriting this story and loved every bit of it! ( Elephant ) Bibliography:  The Frog, the Bee, and the Bird  by  Ziya'al-Din Nakhshabi  

(The dark well:  the well )  I like how this story starts out with a king and 2 queens. I love this because there is so much a writer is able to do because we can add a jealousy aspect to the story. They did just that in this particular story. I gathered a lot of good ideas from reading this story and would have so much fun rewriting it in a new creative way. I found it interesting that instead of taking action on her own, the jealous queen altered the kings mind and made him hate his own son and become jealous of him. He ended up ordering his hands and feet be cut off and thrown into a well. There is already so much jealousy throughout this story and I love it. After the son is thrown into the well, I can come up with so many different ideas to how the son can enact revenge on his father. Overall, this was a really fun story to read and  these are just a couple of my ideas on how I could change the story up when I potentially rewrite it.  Bibliography:  Raja  by J. Lockwood Kipling

 I was a party animal. My family was rich and I was living my best life off of my inheritance. All the ladies, all the booze, anything you could imagine and life couldn't get much better. I was living everyone's dream until one terrible day when my whole life would change forever.  It was a Tuesday morning, I remember it like it was yesterday, and I woke up with a massive hangover. I roll out of bed, check my safe, and realize I only have a fraction of the money that I started out with. This was not a good sign and something had to change. I did not know what to do because I had never had to work before. I had a moment where I freaked out but eventually I came up with a plan. I was going to sell everything and join a group of merchants that trade by sea. This could be fun right? Constant adventure by sea, who knows what this new life could bring! First Voyage Me and the crew set sail for the East Indies. This was a routine trip and we were hoping to make some good trades and sa

 Sindbad continues to supply me with interesting adventure stories. This guy continues to explore even after all of his terrifying encounters and close death experiences. The writing used in these stories is amazing and constantly provides the audience with specific details as well as pure entertainment. I love everything about these stories and would love to come up with something like one of these. I love adventure and I think I could use some of the cool ideas from this story and make a new one that would turn out pretty good. It would be difficult to make them even remotely as good as the original but it would be fun to try and be as creative as the author was for these stories. Overall, I loved reading these and I am glad I chose to read Sindbad. (Sixth Voyage:  Rene Bull ) Bibliography: "Sixth Voyage" by Andrew Lang  Arabian Nights Entertainments

 When reading Sindbad's first voyage, I loved how the story started. It starts with Sindbad inheriting a large wealth of money and being irresponsible as a young man and wasting a good portion of his wealth. I really like when stories start out this way because it shows normal human nature especially when the person is young and irresponsible. Another part of the introduction I liked was the fact that he recognized his mistakes and decided to try and figure out how we was going to save his money so he had some left when he was older. Furthermore, I loved the twist they threw in where they mention an island and it turns out to be the back of a massive whale! This story does a great job demonstrating creativity in writing. After Sindbad gets thrown off the whale, he hits the water and miraculously floats to another island that is actually an island. At the new island, a man stumbles upon him and leads him to the rest of the inhabitants. Sindbad finds safety there with the inhabitants

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 In the beginning there was nothing and the earth was filled with darkness. One day, God decided that he would make the earth full and have life. After 7 days of creating the earth, God decided to create a man. He gathered the dust and wind and created a man from his own creation. The Lord had created a beautiful garden full of any food the man could ever dream of. The man lived in paradise and one day God decided to make him a companion. On this day, God took a rib from the man and created a woman. Her name was Eve. The two would do everything together and had the entire Garden of Eden to themselves. In these simple times, God only had one rule for the both of them. The rule was to never eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This seemed like a simple task; however, it is human nature to want things you are told not to have. One day, satan took form as a slithery snake and tricked the woman into eating the forbidden fruit. After the woman ate the fruit, she convinced Ada

Reading part B of Adam and Eve is very interesting. It explains not only why but also how they were forced out of the garden and also where they were allowed to go. I found the reasoning to be quite interesting. This also made me think what it would have felt like to have been forced out of the only place you knew and no you have to figure out how to live in this massive world. Imagine having to start off with nothing and no clue how to survive. It is amazing to me that this creation is so intricate and beautiful. I thought it was very nice that God allowed Adam and Eve to live and explore this world but promised them that no beast of the earth would try to eat them. He forced them to start a new life but still cared enough to protect him from the other dangerous animals that were no longer friendly after they sinned. What I have made note of from all of this is to add detail and creativity. The thing I like most about all of this is how it started because satan came to them in the gar

 Creation of man and woman is a fascinating story. If I were to have chosen the creation story topic for my storybook, this would be a great resource. However, I can still use this particular story to provide me with attention to detail, creativity, and providing the reader with a source behind the creation. I love how God created man out of dust. First He created the ocean and earth and then created man from his original creation. I also like how this was not all done at once, but it was a project in itself. It makes me think that it is God's storybook and each day was a new story with a new creation. This particular passage was more of an informational and creative passage. This provided me with many ideas and how to apply history and creativity to my storybook.  (Creation of Eve:  Wiki Commons )

(Feedback:  Mental Itch )  Personally, I am not someone that thrives off of getting positive feedback. I do my work my way and do it well so I do not need someone to tell me that it is "good." On the other hand, if my work is not good, I would like to know what I did wrong and be able to fix it.  Even though I do not personally function off of positive feedback, I am aware that others do. When reading the article "Five Reasons to Stop Saying 'Good Job'" I was intrigued by the fact that Alfie Kohn discourages the use of the phrase "good job." I do agree with many of the points the author made that the phrase is used too much and it is starting to lose its meaning. This article made some good points but I disagreed with the majority of it. I think you should encourage kids because if you fail to do so then they won't believe in themselves. This is not always the case but it is for some children.  Alfie Kohn Another article I found interesting was

  Nephilim This website gives me valuable information on the origin of Giants and the Biblical relevance of the species and how they came about. This website taught me that Giants (Nephilim) are mixtures from the fallen angels after creation and man. When the fallen angels came to earth they mingled with the people of earth and their children were the Nephilim.  10 Mythical giants This website gives me the history and story of 10 giants and how they came about. These giants are different than the Nephilim because these are giants from greek mythology. I could find some creative ways to use these giants in my stories because each one has a different character trait to it.  David and Goliath This story is from the Bible. It is about how the young boy David took down a Nephilim giant named Goliath. This is a great story that I can use in my storybook and allows for me to continue the theme of Giants.  I also have some more ideas that I can do with giants and am really looking forward to w

  Long, long, ago the people that were on earth worshiped God. Because they all worshiped him and dedicated their lives to him, in turn, God provided them with food, shelter, and safety. These individuals had the lifespan of hundreds of years and some of them even lived to be 1000 years old. Times were much different back then. Unfortunately, because of the actions of man things had to change. As the common man normally does, the people of earth became complacent and lost sight of the reason they were still living and thriving. The people of earth began to worship fake gods that were man made and disrespected their Heavenly Father.     However, one faithful man named Noah never lost sight of who his  creator was and continued to faithfully worship Him and only Him. God was outraged with his people and had a plan to reset the world. Noah was sent a message from God telling him to build an Ark and get a male and female of EVERY animal on earth. With direction from God, each animal, male

 This continuance of Homer's Iliad has proven to show some fantastic writing skills. The battle descriptions are very detailed and captivating to read. I have taken notes on how to describe scenes while not flooding the reader with pointless details that lose their interest. This story does a great job of keeping the reader interested in every battle scene and every scene in general. I also noted how the story takes a brief break from the fighting to talk about other things but has the battle continue in the background. Later, they pick back up and show how the fight has progressed. This was a very interesting way to continue the story and I might use something similar to that style when writing my own stories. This story continues to provide me with great ideas and different ways to express emotion through writing. I am fascinated with the authors ability to continue to engage the audience while also describing in detail so many important aspects to the story. One thing I did have

I love how this story has so many battles imbedded within it. I also enjoy that there are women featured in the story and the men fight for them. These are great aspects of stories and they really bring the story to life and make it personal. I love greek mythology and how the gods, demigods, and mortals interact with one another. This is another great idea that I can incorporate with my stories. It is essentially a higher power caste system within greek mythology and I am fascinated by the powers each god and goddess has. Furthermore, I am intrigued by how even among the gods, they have a supreme leader (Zeus) who can overturn rules and basically run the show. I found it funny when Thetis asked Zeus to make sure Achilles would win the war and Zeus replied that it would cause problems with him and his wife. I found this funny because it really related to how some parents interact with their kids and the dad will do something knowing that it will make his wife upset with him. When going

First of all, I love feedback. Feedback will single-handedly remove confusion from the equation and allows for the person receiving it to become better and understand what is going on. My biggest pet peeve is when teachers give you a low score, or a score that you think is not accurate based on the work you put in, and then they provide no feedback for you to understand what you did wrong or even do better the next time. Feedback is essential in education if you want students to succeed. Furthermore, the type of feedback you give will determine if the student succeeds or fails. Obviously, nobody likes hearing they did something poorly or wrong. In the article "Why It's So Hard to Hear Negative Feedback" ( New York Times ) goes on to explain why we hate it so much. This article really brought up a lot of good points on why people don't like hearing negative feedback, but it also taught us how to use it and get better from it. This article went as far as to show us how

 Giants: I would like to possibly make giants my topic because I find them very interesting and I think there is a lot of cool things I could write about regarding giants. Because giants have a magical feel to them, I feel like I could have a really fun time writing stories about them or possibly people playing with the giants. I think there is a ton of room for creativity when it comes to writing and learning about giants and I think this would be a really fun topic to dive into. When reading some storybooks and other stories on giants I was very interested in them because the stories made them seem so interesting and unique. Giants are incredible creatures that not everyone gets the opportunity to learn about and that is why I am so intrigued by them.  https://sites.google.com/site/truthaboutgiants/ Creation Stories: I find creation to be very interesting and mysterious. I love that creation stories is such a broad term which allows for so much room for creativity. With this topic I

(Jungle:  Surviving in the Jungle )   One day a tiger was walking through the jungle and stumbled upon a cage. To the tiger’s surprise it noticed there was a man inside of it. The tiger was very happy when it saw this because he was very hungry and had been searching for food for quite some time now.     The man became worried instantly and feared for his life. The tiger asked the man “why are you trapped in the cage” and the man replied “I have been stuck here for a few days now because I have been captured by a tricky jackal.    (Caged man: Fulcrum Gallery ) Upon hearing this, the tiger became very excited because that was a new opportunity for him to get more food. After hearing this, the tiger stayed at the cage so he could plan how to get the man out so he could eat him. First he tried ramming himself into it. That did not work. Next he tried reaching through the bars to grab the man but the man was too quick and the cage was too big so that did not work either.    As the tiger co

 I decided to read the story Tricksters: Tiger, Brahman, and Jackal because I love stories like this. This story was written by Joseph Jacobs and illustrations by John D. Batten. The story was written very well and really captured the readers attention for the entirety of the short story. There were definitely a lot of ideas from the story that I want to use in my own writing. For one, I love the tricksters theme and how the "bad guy" gets tricked in the end and loses. I also like how the jackal pretended to be dumb and a fool but in the end the "smart" tiger was the actual fool. These are all writing styles and strategies that I plan to use in my own stories.  Story information:  Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1912). https://sites.google.com/view/mythfolkloreanthology/tricksters (Tiger, Brahman, and Jackal: illustration by John Batten.  Myth-Folklore Anthology ) This image is very interesting and descriptive of the story.