Week 6 Storytelling

(sun photo, by Simon)

Author's Note: I'll come back and edit this later, but basically this story is based off of the story of Anansi and Nothing. Anansi meets Nothing, a rich man, on the road one day and they go off to town to find a wife. Shenanigans ensue. I really will come back and edit this, but I wanted to get it posted....

Source:  West African Folktales by William H. Barker and Cecilia Sinclair, with drawings by Cecilia Sinclair (1917).

In the late morning, during the second month of my stay in Ghana, I knocked on the door of the woman Abena, whom I had met only the night before. The morning was clear and cool, and a breeze ruffled my skirt as I stood there on the threshold, only my racing heart betraying my impatience. Behind me, the city rumbled and screeched along its daily path through the streets.

She answered the door with a child on her hip and worry in the lines of her face. “Oh!” she said. “The anthropologist. I did not expect you this morning. Maybe tomorrow morning?”

My hopes sank. “Tomorrow” often meant “some indefinite time in the future”, and I only had a few more weeks before I needed to start writing my report. I could feel the hole lurking in my argument as I spoke. I’d attempted to chase down several of the people who told me “tomorrow” before, and they kept pushing me off. I’d sworn that I wouldn’t be pushed off today. “Of course I could come back tomorrow,” I said. “But if even if you only have a few minutes, I would be happy to hear what you have time to tell me.

Another child came to her side. “My friend,” she said, again “perhaps now is not the best time?”

I took a deep breath. My heart was racing very, very fast—I didn’t want to mess this up, but I’d been trying to get somebody to tell me this story for a month now—to no avail. [] Had seemed perfectly willing to tell me last night. What had changed her mind? “Of course,” I heard myself saying, like I had so many times before. “I’ll come back tomorrow. I—“

Right at that moment, something crashed in the street behind me. A man had knocked over the trash can that stood by the road as he walked by. When I turned back to look at Abena, the lines in her face had deepened—not with worry, but with something I could only describe as annoyance. She looked at me, and then back at the man, who hadn’t even stopped to pick up the trash can but who was making his way down the street with his shoulders thrown back. She shifted the child on her hip.

“My friend,” she said, “you said you wished to hear a story. Please come in, and I will tell you one.”

When we had settled down at the worn table in the kitchen, the dim light from the window washing the wood and the cup of tea she had made for me gold and silver, she took a deep breath. “You said you wished to hear a story,” she said. “I cannot tell you the one you asked for, but I will tell you one about a man who was unkind to his wife, and how it fared for him.

“But—“ I said.

She cut me off. “My friend, listen to me. I will tell you this story, or you can go and ask someone else for the one you keep asking for. Will you listen to mine? Or will you leave now?”

I shoved down my impatience. Nobody ever got anywhere, in fieldwork, by being impatient. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m listening. Please tell your story.”

For a moment, there was silence while she stared at the table and stirred her tea. I thought she wasn’t going to say anything. Then, slowly, she began her tale. “This is the story about a man who was unkind to his wife,” she repeated, “and another man, named Nothing, who was kind to his. It goes like this: one day, a businessman who was down on his luck met another businessman—his neighbor—on the road to the city. The first businessman was poor, so he wore ragged clothes, while his neighbor wore very fine ones, but they got to talking and found that they were both going to the city to look for a wife. They decided to go together.”

Somewhere in the house, something banged and a child shrieked. Abena glanced worriedly towards the door, but relaxed when she heard the glee in the child’s voice.

I shifted in my chair. “What happened then?” I asked.

“The poor businessman tricked the rich businessman into trading clothes with him. He said that he wanted to feel rich for a day—and of course, being rich, the other businessman understood. But the poor businessman tricked the rich one, and didn’t give his clothes back before they reached the town. When the got to the square where all the girls were, the girls only interested in the poor businessman. They didn’t know he was poor, because of his clothes.

“The rich businessman was named Nothing. He didn’t get any attention, because he was wearing the ragged clothes. Only one girl wanted to speak with him, but she was the most beautiful of them all, and the most kind. The rest of them had no use for him.

“The poor businessman negotiated a marriage with the kindest girl’s best friend, who was the second most beautiful of all the girls in the square. He kept the rich businessman’s clothes, so that she had no idea he had no money, or that he was a trickster, before the wedding. So she married him.”

She stopped, and gazed steadily at me for a few moments. “You should not be tricked by poor businessman in rich clothes,” she said, finally. “That is my story, my friend.”

Week 6 Reading Diary: West African Folk Tales, Part 2

(Sun photo, by Simon)

There were so many wonderful stories in this section that I would feel really conflicted about which to write about, if one hadn't made me so excited when I was reading it that I ended up leaving my lunch on the stove for too long, and burning my food! That story was The Moon and Stars, and I'll talk about it a bit here, but I also want to talk about some other options I've been thinking about for this week's storytelling assignment this week, too...so, without further ado:

Why Tigers Never Attack Men Unless They Are Provoked: I really loved this story, from the tenuous beginnings of friendship to when the man falls down weeping over the tiger's imitated death. I have a weakness for stories about unusual friendship, and I feel like this story could actually be imitated through an anthropologist's field notes--but as a real-life scenario, maybe, as an unusual friendship between two humans who mimic the man's and the tiger's personas? Since, as is stated in the notes, there aren't actually any tigers in Africa...

The Ungrateful Man: once again, a story that I really enjoyed. It would also translate well into a field note/real life story, I think, as an allegory about humans and humanity and kindness vs. betrayal. It has the potential for some cool imagery, too, and maybe a colorful cast of characters...since I still haven't ended up writing any stories with larger casts...

The Moon and Stars: Like I said, I burned my lunch while reading this story! The style of narration really made me care about the characters and what happened to them--plus there was a dragon, and a fiddle, and a castle--basically, this story pushed all of the right buttons for me. It's also an Anansi tale, which means that it would be good practice for writing the later Anansi tales to come. I'm less sure about how it could translate into an anthropologist's field notes, but I'll think on that--I don't have time to write the story until tomorrow, but I'll let all these ideas stew in the back of my head until then....

Source: West African Folk Tales, by William H. Barker and Cecelia Sinclair, with illustrations by Cecelia Sinclair (1917).

Week 6 Reading Diary: West African Folktales

("Dew on a Spider's Web in the Morning, by Luc Viatour, via Wikipedia)

I picked this section this week because I'll be using the Jamaican Anansi folktales for my Storybook and I wanted to start feeling out what I want to actually do for the Storybook (because I'm still very much undecided on that front!). There were lots of interesting stories, and I think what I'll try to do is tell my story this week from the point of view of an anthropologist (see: me). I've actually read several ethnographies on various regions within West Africa, so we'll see how this goes...

As for the parts that really caught my eye this week:

How We Got the Name Spider Tales: origin stories are some of my favorites, and there are so many in this unit that I'll have a whole spectrum to choose from, but this one is really interesting because it's like the origin story or origin stories, and that kind of nested form would be really interesting to play with in a story. I was actually thinking about combining this story with How Wisdom Became the Property of the Human Race, because I felt that the Wisdom story would act as a nice coda/tie-in piece to the Spider Tales story. I don't really know how I would do this--I haven't had enough time to ponder it--but there's definitely a connection there in my head, so I'll roll with it...

Anansi and Nothing: I feel like this story would be really interesting to tell more from Anansi's wives' point of view (I actually thought that it would be really interesting to have a woman tell this story to an anthropologist in response to a question about either her marriage or the folk tales of the area, as a way to both say that her husband was either wonderful or a real jerk). It might be interesting to juxtapose the way that real life often echoes folklore, and I think that would be a really cool way to do it. There would also be a lot of opportunity to talk about other real-life details, which is also a cool way to mirror the events in the folk tale and tie everything together, I think!

Source: West African Folktales by William H. Barker and Cecilia Sinclair, with drawings by Cecilia Sinclair (1917).

Thoughts on Comments

I like all the comments I get--no really; I mean every single one, because that means that someone didn't end up reading my posts and saying, "No way--you couldn't even get me to comment on that one for credit!" and clicking away from the page immediately. I'm not saying this is a rational kind of fear, but sometimes it's one I have! Even though everyone's been really nice so far. But if I had to say which ones are the most memorable, I'd have to say that: 1) the ones on my introduction post that tell me about classes that people have taken/experiences that people have had with anthropology are some of my favorites, because I'm seriously crazy about my major (I'm not sure if you could tell; I kind of mention it every few sentences) and I love hearing about what other people know about it, because it's not always a field that's in the limelight, as well as: 2) the ones on my story posts that tell me that the story made them feel or think a certain way, because that lets me know that I got at least close to where I was going when I was writing!

As for my own comments, I think I could do better about asking questions and relating to people more (by telling them that I do this or that that's connected with what they're doing, etc.)--these are actually things I struggle in real life conversation with too, so it's kind of funny to see them reflected in my online conversations as well...

Week 5 Reading Diary: Folklore of the Holy Land, Part 1

(Islamic Adam and Eve, by Manafi al-Hayawan, via Wikipedia)

Some parts that struck me as possible story potential from this week's readings:

The Disagreement between Adam and El-Karineh: this story has actually always fascinated me, but I found this version really interesting because of the way that El-Karineh explains why she won't submit to Adam's wishes: she says that, because she was formed from Adam's body after Adam himself was formed, that they are both made "of the same dust". This would be a really interesting dynamic to play on, I think, and it might even make a good contemporary story. I can see El-Karineh translating really well into modern times, and modern women identifying quite a bit with her.

The Tower of Babel: being a linguistics-lover, I think this story would be really fun to write--especially with a larger cast of characters. I don't really ever write stories with large casts, so that might be fun to try! This is also a fairly dramatic story, with lots of potential for description...I could focus in on one particular part of the story, or try to broaden my viewpoint. This story might actually be a cool one to try and write in third person, which is also something that I don't do often because I'm way more comfortable in the closeness of first person.

The Story of Habrun and Ibrahim: the parallels between this story and the story of how Dido won her kingdom in the Aeneid are crazy! The king might be a good point-of-view to tell this story from, or even some other person who watches Ibrahim's trickery go down. It would be interesting to see what the rest of Habrun's kingdom thinks of Habrun, too, especially after he cuts off all those people's heads. A cool thing that I noted in the story: the hill that the forty witnesses are executed on is called "Deyr el Arba'in", which translates to "Hill of the Forty" in English...

Source: J. E. Hanauer (1907). Folklore of the Holy Land.

Storybook Website Link: Anansi Spider Tales

Here is the new site!

Jamaican Spider Tales: Styles Brainstorm

(Dew on a spider's web in the morning, by Luc Viatour, via Wikipedia)

Topic: My Storybook will be about the Anansi Spider Tales from Jamaica. I'm actually really excited about this project, because I'll hopefully be able to tie it in with the research paper that I'm going to need to write for my Anthropology of Captivity and Slavery class, which is going to be about the way that slaves on plantations in Jamaica used the folk history they brought with them from Africa as a resistance method against their owners and their general situations: Anansi spider was their folk hero, because he was a trickster that used his status along with his own cunning to set those that had more power and status on their heads. There's really a lot of information out there on this topic--several books and articles that I've found, and many, many tales--so I'll have lots of potential material to use for research, stories, framework ideas, styles, etc. From what I've already researched, I think that it would be a good idea to use a framework tale--and since two of the most-mentioned stories in my research so far have been this one and this one, those will probably be two of the stories that I'll use.

Bibliography:

1) Martha Warren Beckwith (1924). Jamaica Anansi Stories.

2) Anansi on Wikipedia
3) Emily Zobel Marshall (2009). "Anansi Tactics in Plantation Jamaica: Matthew Lewis's Record of Trickery" in Wadabagei: A Journal of the Caribbean and Its Diaspora.
4) Martha Warren Beckwith on Wikipedia

Possible Styles:

Bedtime/Moral Story/Wisdom Tale: It's possible that I could tie all of these stories together by having an older slave tell them to a younger person--possibly in the context of bedtime, or seeing an injustice done, or something like that. Since these tales were a form of resistance, I think that this would be a really powerful way to link the stories with the frame tale. This would be kind of an ethically problematic method, though, because without doing an incredible amount of research and/or knowing someone who is Jamaican and African-American and who could provide me with feedback and tell me whether I was doing it right, it would just be me and my cultural appropriation skills hanging out with each other while I was writing, and the ghost of my Visual Anthropology teacher in my head saying, "You really don't have any business doing this. You need to take more social theory classes..."

Wisdom Tale II: Another possible idea is to have Anansi spider tell these tales himself to someone either in the present day or in plantation-era Jamaica. Since he's a trickster character, it's possible that he could remain in disguise until the very end, when both the reader and the one he was telling tales to finds out that he's actually the hero of all the stories he's been telling. Once again, though, this is going to be very ethically problematic, unless he's telling them to a person of my ethnic background.

Animal Tale/Museum Tale/Wisdom Tale III: Another idea I had was to have the storytelling take place in a museum (a museum with bugs? They have those, right?), where a child is looking at the spiders exhibit and either Anansi in disguise of the spiders themselves tell the child the Anansi stories. This actually sounds really creepy, now that I think about it, but it's a kind of cool idea--although, once again, very ethically problematic under some circumstances.

Anthropological Research: This is actually my favorite of all of the ideas, as it incorporates a method calling "objectifying your objectification" into the framework and gives me a lot more leeway in how I tell my stories in terms of choosing characters and such. The framework is this: an anthropologist (possibly the one who wrote a book that I'm using for research for this project, Martha Warren Beckwith, who trained under Franz Boas in the new school of anthropology in the early 1900s) goes to conduct field school in Jamaica, and listens to the tales being told to her by some Jamaican elders. The website could be themed as her fieldnotes, where she writes down all the stories she's been told as well as she can. This way I keep the context of the sources I'm using within the story, and I acknowledge the ethically problematic subject matter in a way that makes it much easier for me to stomach writing all of these stories. This style has some really interesting implications for commenting on Boasian anthropology in general, which is what I have taken enough social theory to be able to accomplish in a somewhat-satisfying way. 

Week 4 Storytelling: Luck and Misfortune

("The Victory of Buddha", via Wikipedia)

Once, there was a man who walked in the world and saw only the things he could not see.

There are three main kinds of things not seen, of course. Firstly, there is the kind which are washed out by previous assumptions. This is the easiest kind to learn to see, because you only need to learn to open your eyes again after you've opened them the first time, and these things start to appear. Secondly, there is the kind of things that don’t exist, even if they are suspected to. This is the least dangerous kind, except for when it isn’t. And thirdly, lastly, there is the kind of things that you don’t even try to see, because you're ignorant of their very existence. These are the things that hide in plain sight; the things that bleed and kill and cry out for attention.

The man—we’ll call him Anand, which means "happiness" in his language, though that is not his real name—saw all three of these kinds of things. But it was the last kind that drove him mad bit by bit, because it is the hardest kind to see: to begin to grasp these things with your eyes, you must first grasp them with your mind. You must find your ignorance, and grasp that too, and put the unseen things where your ignorance was--and anyone who is aware of anything knows that ignorance is one of the hardest things to grasp: it is vast and intangible and constantly moving, so that it is partly one of all three kinds of things, and yet none of them simultaneously.

It hadn’t always been this way for Anand. Once, he had been a shining beacon of a man, splendid in his virtue and bliss. He was not aware of his own ignorance, and so he could not be bothered by things he could not see. The things he did see, he took at face value and did not judge them, for the blissful are not prone to judging.

I find this funny, or I wouldn’t be telling you this story. Anand's ignorance isn’t funny, of course, but what's funny is this: Anand became aware of all three of these kinds of things simultaneously, and it was all my fault. But who can blame me? I was only doing my job...

It all started on the road. This could seem a symbolic statement, like I meant for all of this to start on the road, but really the road is just a dangerous place to be. All kinds of people are on the road traveling to and from all sorts of places, for all sorts of different reasons, carrying all sorts of stories on their backs like so many baskets of worn river stones. It's entirely possible, there, for you to meet a person you've never met before, and for that meeting to cast a light on one of the Unseen Things. Cast a light on anything and it casts a shadow as well: thus you begin to see an Unseen Thing. Cast many lights, and the shape of the thing may begin to take form. But Anand didn’t know this at the time, and so the road was especially dangerous for him.

I've told you a bit about Anand already, but now I'll tell you about the way he grew up. His story goes like this: he was a prince, and born to a king of middling fame, in a kingdom that was generally prosperous and well-known—thus why I didn’t use his real name. There is a very real chance you might know who he was, because even if neither his father nor his kingdom were particularly famous in the wider world, Anand was the darling of his own kingdom, and everyone there knew him. You might recognize his real name if I used it, and thus know that he eventually outgrew his humble background.

But I digress. Anand never known about the ugly parts of life, because everyone who loved him only ever wanted to give him the beautiful parts, and so he grew up surrounded by things like elegance and love and cleanliness. He knew nothing of old age, because old age was not elegant, and little to nothing of sickness, because everyone was well-fed, well-rested, and very clean. And he knew nothing of me.

You can call me Isha, by the way, which means "lord," although that is not my real name either.

Anand first grasped the Unseen Things when, one day, he went out onto the road to make a visit to the next kingdom over, from which he was destined to take a bride. Not two hours into the forest, where everything was as lush and beautiful as a palace (and also as deadly, but that remained Unseen), an old man stepped across the path of Anand's charioteer. He was wizened and half-deaf and suffered from a bit of dementia, but I suppose he was doing well for an old man because I didn’t know who he was.

Anand asked his charioteer how such a man could exist. The charioteer told him about old age.

A few steps down the path, a man with rot in his lungs and boils on his skin leaped out of the trees, his eyes feral with fever. He babbled with a swollen tongue: nonsense words, pleading words, desperation in every line of his body.

So Anand once again asked how such a wretched person could exist. And the charioteer told him about sickness.

A few more steps down the path, I knew it was time. I stepped out of the trees, and gazed directly into his face. It is not easy, gazing into the eyes of Death, Lord of All, but Anand held mine, his gaze as surprised as an open door.

I stepped back into the trees.

Anand returned to his palace the next day and discussed what he had seen with his father, and his mother, and his newly-wedded wife, who had returned with him from the next kingdom. He drove himself half-mad with what he could not see, until one day he decided to leave, and go out on the road by himself.

But that, my children, is another story.

Author's Note:

This isn't one of my best, but I managed to I cobble this story together using 1) the scenes in The Life of Buddha where Siddhartha discovers the misfortunes of the world, along with 2) my own recent experiences in studying anthropology (yesterday I had one of those moments where your eyes are opened to a whole world of Unseen Things, which is why this story didn't get written earlier--I must have opened up this document at least 10 times and just stared at the page, thinking that I really didn't have anything meaningful or useful to say about anything in life), and a random prompt from the storytelling generator about Death being the narrator of the story. In The Life of Buddha, Prince Siddhartha, who when he was born was prophesied to bring Enlightenment to the world, and who grows up extremely sheltered in his father's palace, to  goes out one day to make a visit to a neighboring kingdom in his chariot and comes across an old man. Having never seen old age before, the prince is obviously very shocked and intrigued. On the next two consecutive days, he goes out and sees a man dying of sickness and a dead man. He is so completely overwhelmed by the notion of death that he becomes consumed by his preoccupation with it. He goes back to his palace completely and utterly amazed by what he'd never seen before. This was really applicable to my experiences this week, so I tried to write a story about the experience of having your ignorance shown to you all at once.

Also, I still really like this picture--there's a kind of peaceful beatitude to it that really calmed me down when I wasn't sure what I was going to write for this week's story. The self-possessed posture of the Buddha is what finally inspired me to start writing this story the way I wrote it.

Source: Andre Ferdinand Herold (1922) The Life of Buddha.

Week 4 Reading Diary: The Life of Buddha, Part 2

("The Victory of Buddha", via Wikipedia)

Source: Andre Ferdinant Herold (1922). The Life of Buddha.

This section didn't have quite as many ideas that sparked my imagination as the last--but it was still pretty awesome! I really liked the descriptions and metaphors and similes used in the writing for this unit, so I was thinking it might be interesting to try something similar. I find writing in the 3rd person to be challenging anyway, so that would be something really interesting to try, I think, writing-wise...

But anyway, here were some of the parts that jumped out at me:

Gopa and Suddhodana Grieve: Chantaka was a wonderful character, as was Siddhartha's horse, and their return to the palace to tell Siddhartha's family that he has left is really moving. The characters here are all really well-drawn, and it would be really interesting to do a close-up on one of them--especially Mahaprajapati, when she tosses the gems into the pool.

Arata Kalama/King Vambasara/The Disciples Leaving: This is another nice example of threes; it comes full-circle and the arc shows that Siddhartha gets lost on his way to englightenment, as he starts to go the path of abstinence, and then when he realizes this isn't working he reasons his way onto the right path again. His disciples think this is hypocrisy, and they leave, which has cool implications for a dramatic story full of debate and meditation.

The Tree of Knowledge: I really like this whole section; it has sort of the same tension as waking up one morning and knowing it's going to be a good day, and you're going to accomplish your goals--you just have to wait until you come to the right point. Siddhartha's determination to not move from this spot would be a really interesting character study, too.

Buddha's Awakening: I really want to do something with this section, but I don't know what. One idea I was tossing back and forth in my head was doing a continuation of the story--what happens after Buddha awakens? Maybe I'll look for some texts that continue the story--or even make something up...

Week 4 Reading Diary: The Life of Buddha, Part 1

("Departure of Prince Siddhartha", by Nivedita, via Wikipedia)

Source: Andre Ferdinand Herold (1922). The Life of Buddha.

I've had so many favorite moments in this week's reading already--I can't wait to read the next half, and find out what happens! But in the meantime, here are some parts that seemed to have particular potential for a story:

Asita's Prediction: Call me crazy, but I think this story would be a particularly good one to do a present-day retelling of, because of the potential parallels to be made between the problems in the world of the story and the problems of the contemporary. I thought when I first read this part that it would be really interesting to tell the story from Asita's point of view, because he is, after all, so heartbroken that he'll never live in a world where the Buddha has reached enlightenment--that's some serious character potentiality! There's also some mentions in the next section of the extreme prosperity that the kingdom reaps when Siddhartha is born, which got me thinking that it might be a good idea to throw some of the details from the other sections into the story, if I were to base the meat of my story off of this section.

The Encounters: These are really powerful scenes that would function really well in either a story about the past or a story about the present (or possibly a story about the future--science fiction Buddha! With cyborgs! What an idea...) I was thinking that there are several potential interesting POV characters: Siddhartha, the charioteer, the king, any of the men from the three encounters...all possibilities! The story could focus on all three of the encounters, or only on one (probably either the first or the last--and I'm leaning towards the last as the best).

The Great Truths: Either Siddhartha's encounter with the monk (from the monk's point of view? I think that Siddhartha has some really interesting character development all throughout this unit so far, and I'm really curious so see how a narrator who doesn't know how he's going to turn out in the future would see him...) or when he pleads with his father to let him become a hermit sound like good scenes to focus on here--it might even be interesting to throw in Gopa's dream beforehand, because these three events are really what starts to drive the story (and Siddhartha) forward in a more optimistic way.

Like I said, so many choices...already...

Week 2 Storybook Topics

1) Possible Topic: Ballads! I love ballads; I know a lot of them, and sing them to annoy my brothers (because a lot of the time they're kind of depressing and sung in a minor key), but I'm always up for learning more. What I love most about them is the way they have certain narrative conventions that interconnect within the different traditions--for example, there are "genres" of Irish ballads that all use specific linguistic and thematic devices to tell their stories. I would have to pick whether I was going to do English, Irish, Scottish, or Welsh ballads, I suppose, but I love the way that the songs always tend to be just ambiguous enough to leave room for lots of artistic license and/or reinterpretation while still clearly referencing a specific song or genre. Obviously I've already done a lot of research already on this topic, so I know about the Child Ballads, but I haven't by any means read or heard all of them so picking a few of the lesser-known ones for my storybook would be really interesting, I think.

(Photo of Knud Rasmussen, via Wikimedia Commons)

2) Possible Topic: Inuit myths. It might be interesting aesthetically to do a storybook this way, because of the ways in which Inuit myths were told--or it might even be a cool idea to move them into contemporary times! I've been taking a class this semester called Visual Anthropology, and we've been reading about and watching indigenously-made clips of Inuit myths--and I've been telling myself this entire time that I should learn more about them! From the UnTextbook, there's the Eskimo Folk Tales unit (it should be noted that the author of this book, Knud Rasmussen, has actually been mentioned quite a bit in my VisAnth class), but there's also this website, which may not include source material but may give me a springboard into some other myths that are interesting...

3) Possible Topic: Anansi Spider Tales. I love trickster myths, and I've actually (as weird as it sounds) always wanted to write a story about a spider--and this would give me the chance to write several! I don't really know anything about West African myths, too, so this would be a cool opportunity to do some research on them--I've had to read a couple of ethnographies set in West Africa for my anthropology classes, too, so it might be interesting to use those to help develop my setting. And as always, there's also the link to the UnTextbook....

4) Possible Topic: The Panchatantra. It sounds so interesting to be able to write in a nested form; I'd really like to try it out. Stories about storytellers often get really interesting--as my Visual Anthropology teacher would say about filming filmmakers, things get "really cool and weird and stuff," so this is definitely a possibility. Also, having poked through Wikipedia a bit, it looks like this work was the inspiration for Kalilah wa Dimnah, which is a book of Arabic folk tales that I read in actual Arabic for a book club, so now I'm really excited to learn more!

Week 3 Storytelling: The Consumption

(15th century ink illustration of St. Margaret slaying the dragon, by an unknown author, via Wikipedia Commons)

Author's Note: This story is kind of a gory one--please be aware if you have a weak stomach. I wasn't sure how to avoid description of wounds, though, in a story about a saint--in all the stories I read for this section, there was at least one mention of torture or beheading.

Anyway, though: this week's story is based off of a scene in the life of St. Margaret as described in the Golden Legend. The original in the Golden Legend follows the story of St. Margaret's life, from her birth as the daughter of a pagan prince and her conversion to Christianity, to the horrible tortures her father subjects her to in his aim to make her repent, to her eventual beheading. One of the most striking scenes in the story occurs during the night Margaret spends in prison after her father has had her stripped and beaten: a dragon appears and swallows her, but she makes the sign of the cross and is released from the dragon's stomach. The dragon then shape-shifts to its true form--that of a devil--and Margaret holds it captive and forces it to converse with her in order that she may know where it came from and why it is so bent on evil purposes. I chose this scene to follow because a) I love the potential for sensory description that dragons bring into a story and b) I wanted to try out a writing style that focused more on sensory description--in this case, touch--than my last story.

So, without further ado, here is the story...



Later, people would say that the dragon couldn’t have swallowed me; that, instead, I had simply made the sign of the cross and the beast had vanished into thin air. I can only say to you that whoever told this story could never have met a dragon in person, because then they would have known that dragons are quicker than asps and more cunning than weasels, and should one arrive suddenly with the intention of eating you, you would have no chance. Ignorants declaimed that my story was apocryphal because I was the one who told it—and, truly, who else could uphold my claim, when there had been none but the dragon and I in the prison that night? Though the prison-keepers swore that a blinding light had issued from the door, they were apt to bring their bottles with them to their posts, and none would readily believe them.

No matter. I will tell the story again, this time to you. Perhaps you will have more faith.

I was weeping when it came for me: weeping and praying. My eyes wept tears, and my wounds wept blood, and dark water dripped from the dungeon ceiling. The drops crashed to the floor in a steady rhythm, like the beating of the executioner’s drum to be heard on the morrow, or like the hot tongue of the provost’s whip that had licked my skin, again and again. The sting of my earlier screams was a knife in my throat. My tortured body was all aflame with ache, and my hand trembled as it made the sign of the cross on my chest, over and over, tracing gentle lines over the scores in my flesh.

As I said, the dragon came suddenly—but I cannot say that I did not expect it. What one prays for, one must be prepared to receive, and my thoughts that night had succumbed to the malaise of the prison. I was praying to see the face of the reason for my torment when its foul maw appeared not inches before my eyes, followed closely by the flash of teeth and a glimpse of a gullet too long and dark for words.

The journey to the dragon’s stomach was mercifully quick. It is hard to describe what being swallowed is like, but I thought at the time that it was a bit like torture, where one enters a tunnel from which there is no entrance or exit, only the narrow focus of the next move. Heat from the dragon’s tissues scorched my clothes and hair and set my wounds aflame, every inch of my body alive with horror.

A dragon’s stomach can be likened to a cauldron filled with boiling water. By the time I landed within, still half-weeping, prayers flickering through my mind like a candle guttering in the wind, it had occurred to me, rather absurdly, that should I ever see my father's Provost again it would be well to tell him that the tortures he inflicted on others were no match for those that Hell could bestow upon those it hated; that he should leave the torturing to Satan altogether, and it would be much more satisfying for all parties. As I screamed at the touch of the stomach’s juices, I closed my eyes and drew every ounce of faith I could muster from within my  bones, my hand rising once more to form a shaky cross over my heart.

Then I was on the floor, retching, as the dragon cowered and shrieked above me. I watched with my cheek pressed to the cold dirt floor as the beast shivered and shrunk, down and down, until what faced me was merely a man—or seemed to be. He fell to his knees in the dark water at the center of the cell, his body gaunt and his breathing tormented.

Bit by bit, I raised myself onto unsteady feet. I took care not to make a sound, but my efforts were for naught: the man was weeping. When, finally, I could step forward with any vestige of steadfastness, I crossed the floor to stand behind him. With both hands, I gripped his shoulders and threw him to the floor, pressing my foot against his neck. Still he wept, but my tears had dried in my eyes from the heat of the dragon’s belly.

“Lie still, foul devil” I said, hearing the strength of God in my voice, “under the foot of this faithful woman. And tell me your name, so that I may banish you back to your Master.”

And that is my story. I had vanquished the devil, but in truth it is impossible to vanquish all of the evil that appears within our dungeons with a simple cross: the next morning I was brought to the executioner's block, and though through My Lord God I was able to die with dignity and courage, and though believers now speak my name with the respect a saint deserves, the lies my tormentors told of me are still all that is known about me.

Please see to it that others know the truth as well.

Source: The Life of St. Margaret, from The Golden Legend, edited by F. S. Ellis (1900)

Additional Resources Used: A History of the Death Penalty (PBS)
                                              Cauldron Use and Form (via the British Museum)
                                              More Info on St. Margaret of Antioch (via Wikipedia)

Week 3 Reading Diary: Women Saints of the Golden Legend

(15th-century illumination of St. Margaret slaying the dragon, by William Vrelant, via Wikipedia Commons)

My favorite two stories in this section followed Saint Margaret and Saint Christine. These were the last two stories in Part A, and were slightly longer and more complex than the ones that had come before--in some cases they even could be viewed as an amalgamation of parts of the previous stories.

I have to admit, I picked this section to read because the idea of a saint who was not only a woman, but also a dragon-killer, intrigued me to no end (I LOVE dragons; I could read about them all day). And, truly, the scene in the prison with the St. Margaret dragon was my favorite part of her story. I was fascinated by the myriad versions of this scene that appeared in various stories throughout this reading section: the sheer idea of sitting down and talking with a devil that you've vanquished, whatever form it took, is both horrifying and thrilling. And St. Margaret does it with both aplomb and poise, straightforwardly and without fear. This is probably the scene that my story will follow.

St. Christine's story was also...well, not quite enjoyable, but quite interesting to read. Her endurance is what makes the story stand out, I think: it would probably be outside of the word limits for the storytelling posts to do a full, close-up retelling of all the trials she goes through, but that's also an idea that went through my head as I was reading.

Really, though, I loved reading this section, however gruesome and gory it was, because the idea of the kind of faith it takes to withstand torture and dragons and beheadings in the name of a belief is astounding by itself. I'm really looking forward to writing the story for this week.

Source: The Golden Legend, edited by F. S. Ellis (1900)