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.