Extra Reading Diary: Beowulf

Beowulf and Wiglaf

• Beowulf is the son of Ecgtheow and nephew of Hygelac.
• Nicknamed “the Silent”
• “he has the strength in his arms and legs of thirty men."
• Though Beowulf is a Geat, huge chunks of the story take place outside of Geatsand.
• Heorot is the drinking hall in Daneland
• Unferth does not offer to fight Grendel.  (Beowulf is more valiant that Unferth)
• “he would seek out this monster Grendel and slay him — yes! Slay him with bare hands” This preference for weaponless fighting persists throughout the story.
• “But I charge you, Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, earl of the Geats, and my own nephew, return not to these halls if you should fail in your attempt” Seems a bit harsh.  He was the only one to even offer to slay Grendel.
• The story seems to point out age a lot
• Hygd, his aunt by marriage, seems fond of him
• 7 days of preparations and 14 men
• His aunt and uncle gave him a gold collar? What?  Necklace?
• “There were sea-lions of shaggy mane and bird-like fish with horny claws.”  And sea-serpents.
• “But they came at length to the coast of Daneland, and the sea boiled white between them and the land, and the land itself was scarred and pitted with a thousand narrow inlets, which were treacherous to seafarers unfamiliar with them. The forests that clung to the shore line were half hidden in gray mists that moved and twisted like smoke about the trees.”  Sounds violent, harsh, and darkly mysterious.
• “Prince of Weders” Weders?
• Ecgtheow and Hrothgar were friends/war-brothers.
• Wealhtheow is the queen of the Danes
• Seems like all heroes are moody. (Beowulf and Unferth)

Storytelling: The Seven Sisters of Pleiades

Pleiades Constellation 

We are the Seven Sisters.  We have been together for as long as anyone can remember and it is our intent to stay that way.  There have been many who have tried to separate us throughout the years, but none have succeeded.  Though we live in the Sky Land, we are quiet fond of the earth and all that inhabit it.  Because of this, we visit whenever the season is right.  We visit whenever the wind is calm and the lakes are still. 

One day, long ago, a frail young man happened upon us.  Because he was weak, we thought nothing of him.  He had apparently heard our singing and dancing and decided to watch from the safety of the reeds that lined the beach.  As soon as we realized we had someone watching us, we returned immediately to the sky.  Together, the seven of us discussed it and decided that it was just a fluke.  We misjudged and underestimated the young man to our own detriment.  To be safe, we decided to stay away from earth for a while, but it was only for a short period.  We were too eager to return to our lake side paradise.  We became reckless.

We watched as best as we could from our place in the sky, but we saw nothing.  We crept down from the sky and landed on the beach of the lake as quietly as possible.  Each of the seven of us searched the area around the beach.  Again we saw nothing.  With the precautions out of the way, we relaxed and enjoyed our earthly freedom.  We were there for almost an hour before anything happened.  We were dancing when one of us noticed something.  The reeds were moving, but there was no wind.  One of our sisters followed the movements.  We had all turned out attention there as well, but one of us was a few steps closer than the rest.  She parted the reeds to see what was causing the movements, but the young man was hiding there.  He had drawn us in.

As soon as our sister parted the reeds, he jumped out and caught her.  The rest of us almost panicked, but our sister was very clever.  She knew that the man wanted to keep one of us for himself, so she played on that.  She promised him that she would marry him, if only he would come with us to the Sky Land instead of staying on earth.  In his eagerness, he consented to going to the Sky Land.  Once we returned with the man in tow, we all decided then that we would never go the earth again.  That way no one could ever try to separate us.

Author’s Note:

I chose to write about the story of the Origin of the Pleiades.  I kept most of the story the same, however I added details to flesh out the rest of the story.  The original story kind of had a “happily ever after” type of ending, but that’s not exactly how I felt about it.  I wanted to keep the story the same, but play up that the man did wrong by trying to steal one of the sisters. 

Origin of the Pleiades from the British North America unit

Myths and Legends of British North America by Katharine Berry Judson (1917).

British North American: Reading Diary B

Coyote in Alaska

• The fox and hare were brothers?  That seems like an odd relationship
• The importance of dreams is emphasized in the tale of the Origin of the Chinook Wind
• Basically, the two of them did a stick up
• The Fox and the Hare seem to enjoy annoying each other.
• What is up with the trope of racing a hare?
• The young man thought the seven sisters were enchanting so he tried to take one for himself.  They kept eluding him.  He finally caught one and went to the Sky Land to marry her so she wouldn’t be separated from her sisters.
• The woman who was taken by the bears was very clever.
• It is interesting how in the previous story, bears were clumsy.  In the story with the taken woman, they seem to be moving pretty quickly.  
• So the coyote controls the aurora and the winds?
• Who are the Salmon People?
• What is the importance of staying with the Salmon People for “seven moons?”
• Salmon seem to be incredibly important as a good resource to theses peoples.  They appear a lot in their stories.
• Because the coyote wanted to have the salmon for his dinner party thing, the salmon tricked him into thinking it was winter when it was really summer.
• “Wolverene said, "You stupid bird! I was keeping a big piece for you!’ But he wasn't. This is the end”  This was by far the funniest line and I’m not sure why.  
• I love the Ojibwa tales of Nanebojo.  His name varies and little bit between stories, but he is a really interesting trickster character.

British North America

British North America: Reading Diary A

Kayaking in the Queen Charlotte Islands

• So according to the Belle Coola, we live in the middle world.
• 1.       Home of Afraid of Nothing or Home of “Our Woman”
• 2.       House of the Sun
• 3.       Earth
• 4.       Ghost Land
• 5.       Home of those who die a second time
•  A woman is the created according to the Bella Coola.  That’s really unique, but it also makes sense to me.
• Though she is supposedly a great warrior and the creator, when Afraid of Nothing visits earth, it causes death and illness.  That seems to contrast with everything we known about her so far.
• The swans saved the chief’s daughter
• Some of these tales seems familiar to others that I know and some seem similar to each other.
• The beaver seems to make an appearance in nearly all of the stories so far.
• The raven was sneaky and cruel and stole the beaver’s water
• “When night came, Raven took the baby by the heel and shook all his bones out. Then he crept into the skin and pretended to be the baby. But at night he stole out of the baby's skin and became Raven.”  This is beyond creepy.  
• The raven sounds like a prevalent animal.
• Women appear to be more important in this culture than they were in some of the ones that I previously read about.

• The fox seems to be regarded as clever across cultures.

British North America unit