Week 14 Storytelling: The Face of Truth

(Italian Greyhound, via Wikipedia)

Author's Note: I'm putting this one at the beginning because this is going to seem like a really weird story to anyone who hasn't read the original story. This Storytelling isn't my best, but basically it zones in on a particular part of the Italian fairy tale The Fair Angiola, which is a story very similar the story of Rapunzel, where the daughter (Angiola) of a woman forced into a contract with a witch after taking some produce from the witch's garden is taken by the witch one she turns a certain age. In this version, however, when the prince comes to rescue Angiola from her confinement in the witch's tower the witch chases after them, and just as they are about to lose her she puts a curse on Angiola that she will now and forever have a dog's face. Of course, the witch's little dog followed Angiola because he loves her, and eventually when he and Angiola have been living in a cabin in the forest for some time, with the prince visiting occasionally but unable to marry Angiola because of her cosmetic issues, he goes back to the witch and asks her to lift the curse. The witch, having calmed down some, gives the dog a vial of water to lift the curse, and Angiola and the prince and the dog live happily ever after.

I thought that the idea of having the face of a dog was really intriguing. I was waaaaaaaay to tired this go-around to go into the depth of sensory detail that I would have liked to in this story, but I know that dogs have things like only being able to see in blue and yellow and seeing in the dark and a really sharp nose that would really freak a human out if they suddenly developed those traits and lost their human ones...but anyway, here's the story...

***



All Angiola could ever smell was the scent of the witch’s magic.

Her nose was stronger now, of course, than it had been before. It was one of the few perks of having one’s face turned into a dog’s that she could think of. There weren’t that many others: her world had turned all blue and yellow, and her peripheral vision had turned uncanny while looking forwards was nearly impossible (especially with her nose in the way). She also tended to pant a lot, as it was summer and the weather had turned very, very warm. Panting was not a particularly attractive pastime, and she did so hope that Duccio would not hold that image of her in his head for the rest of their married lives—if he did, in fact, ever end up marrying her.

No, she did not particularly enjoy having the face of a dog.

She left the cabin less and less as time went on. There really wasn’t any point to leaving, as seeing the outside world just reminded her in a thousand-fold ways that the witch had cursed her. She couldn’t see the green of the leaves on the trees, or take a breath without all the smells of the forest overwhelming her. Thankfully, she never got any urges to chase the various small animals that crossed her path, but even that small favor seemed insignificant in the larger breadth of her problems.

The witch hated her. So did Duccio’s parents, and they’d never even met her—they only knew that she was a peasant girl with a face like a dog’s, and therefore entirely unsuitable to marry their son the prince of the kingdom. Maybe even Duccio hated her. Hadn’t his visits become shorter and farther apart, lately?

Really, the only thing that made her life bearable was Poalo.

Poalo was a small ball of energy. She knew, theoretically, that he was quite old, but she supposed that being a witch’s dog might give you a longer life span than most. He liked to fetch, and to roll in the dirt, and to be scratched at just that point behind his ear. But, most of all, he liked to talk, and his barks and whines and growls were the only noises she could manage to create with her new snout-mouth.

She missed talking the most, she thought. Her conversations with Poalo were what kept her sane, when all she could manage to convey to Duccio was a faint sense of frustration and anxiety, translated through soulful gazes where his eyes were the wrong color and she always ended up making desperate sounds deep in her throat. Being a witch’s dog, Poalo had not only lived quite a long time but had also had quite a few adventures that he was more than happy to tell her about. He had once, he told her, been turned into a squirrel by the witch when she wanted him to spy on another witch in the next kingdom. Before, he had been quite a large dog. Now, he was only about as long as Angiola’s forearm and barely reached about her anklebone when they both stood side by side.

It had been an adjustment, he’d told her, but he’d managed. As she would eventually adjust to her new face. He’d licked her nose, then, then settled down between her and the fire in a boneless heap, nose tucked underneath his tail.

Yes, Poalo was the only reason for her continued sanity.

One day, as they were both sitting in silence for once with nothing to do but wait out another long, Duccio-less day, he touched her ankle with his nose and laid his chin atop her knee, staring into her eyes in that slightly-pathetic, entreating way he had. “I could go back to the witch,” he said carefully, “and see if she couldn’t give you something to make your face back into a human’s?” He paused. “Although I at least think you look prettier this way. Human faces aren’t nearly as beautiful as dog faces are.

She hugged him. “You don’t have to, Paolo,” she whined, burying her face in his fur. “I know she wasn’t very gentle with you, either.”

He dragged his sandpaper tongue over her shoulder in a slobbery kiss. “But I would. For you.”

It was her turn to pause, and while he did so he began washing her hands. She watched him for a long moment, considering his offer. Then: “She cut off part of my finger, once, when I was little, because I didn’t want her to take me away from my mother. I’d hate to think what she would do to you, if you went back.”

“I’m not afraid of what she might do to me,” he growled. “I only want you to be happy. It pains me to see you unhappy.”

The whine left her throat before she could stop it. She loved him so very much, but—she smoothed the short furs of his coat—she didn’t want him to get hurt by the witch. While the witch loved them both in theory, in practice she was given to volatile moods and cutting off the small fingers of forgetful children. Not to mention turning the face of the girl who had been like a daughter to her into a dog’s.

But he wanted her to be happy.

“All right,” she said to him. “But be careful.”

When he left that night, she stood at the door and stared out into the darkness after him. She could see much better in the low-light with a dog’s eyes than she could with a human’s, and she watched his white pelt bob in the distance until it faded out of sight.



Then she went back inside, heart heavy, to wait for both of the loves of her life to come back.

***

Source: Italian Popular Tales by Thomas Frederick Crane (1885). Untextbook.

Week 12 Storytelling: What the Heart Desires

(Britomart, by Walter Crane, via Wikimedia Commons)

***

Author's note: This story is a backstory to the events that occur in the section of Spenser's The Faerie Queene that describes the trials of Britomart. Britomart is an awesome, awesome princess who, one day, sneaks a look in Merlin's mirror and sees an image of the man she is destined to wed. Falling instantly in love, she vows to go in search of him, and in the process gain fame and glory--which she does! Her companion on her adventures is an old lady named Glauce, who was her nurse when she was young.

I chose to tell the story of how Glauce came to be Britomart's nurse because I really wondered what events in Glauce's life had led her to be a) the nurse to the princess, b) loyal enough to the princess to help her in all her wishes, and c) competent enough to dress both Britomart and herself in full suits of armor and know how to wield a sword. None of Glauce's back story is really explained in the source story, so I decided that she had been a knight, and had fought with Britomart's grandmother in the wars (nothing about Britomart's grandmother is mentioned in the source story, either, so I made all of this up), who had died protecting Glauce on the battlefield, and that's why an old nurse was willing and able to dress up in a suit of armor and take up a sword and go traveling across the whole world with a headstrong princess.

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

***

The King and Queen hired me to raise Britomart because I was the only living woman in memory who had picked up a sword and shield and fought for my kingdom, and Britomart was the only one-year-old in living memory who had ever been as stubborn as she was. Maybe they had thought at the time it was my battle training that would give me the upper hand in raising their child, but really it was my firm promise, given to her the first time we met—her in fine swaddling clothes, sucking on her fingers, eyes wide and brow determined, and me in the clothes I wore to haul sacks of grain from the barns to the kitchen—that I would aid her in any area she chose to pursue.

The King and Queen smiled at me, gave me a room in Britomart’s quarters and a closet full of clothing it would be hard to walk down the hall in, much less to the barn, and left me with the baby. The moment they left the room, Britomart started to cry.

She cried for hours that night. I tried everything—holding her (she flailed until I put her down), changing her swaddling cloth (it was dry), singing a soft song (my voice was terrible, and she cried harder)—but the watchman cried one and then he cried two and finally, long past his cry of three, Britomart wailed herself to sleep.

I sat on a chair beside her crib for a while after, watching her little chest rise and fall with each breath she took. My legs ached from pacing and my ears rang from her piercing cries. Exhaustion pulled at my eyelids.

“I fought with your grandmother, child,” I murmured to her, my voice scarcely louder than the ivy rustling outside the window. “She could fight a battle all night and fall asleep not five minutes after victory was declared. She would be proud.”

Then I fell into the deepest, most dreamless sleep I’d had since the wars.

The reprieve was short-lived, of course. Britomart was up again at five, and as soon as she had opened her eyes she was crying again.

I called for a doctor, who said there was nothing wrong with the child except perhaps a bit of colic, and maybe I should try putting some hot pebbles wrapped in a blanket on her belly. Britomart screamed harder. The maid who came in while I was hurriedly pulling the blanket off said her sister had raised two colicky babies and the only thing that had worked for her was rocking them a certain way for as long as it took to calm them: she demonstrated. For a hopeful second Britomart fell quiet in amazed surprise, and then started crying harder than ever. After a while, the maid, apologetically, gave her back to me and left to do the rest of her chores.

Standing there, attempting to match the rocking motion the maid had been showing me, my head pounding and my jaw aching from clenching it so hard, I realized it was strange that I hadn’t yet seen the King or Queen this morning. It also occurred to me that Britomart’s crying was only as loud as it was because of the stone walls of the room. Outside, it would be much quieter. So I dressed her in the least ornate swaddling cloth I could find and, still in my barn clothes—there hadn’t been time to change since the previous afternoon—I set out to the gardens.

As suspected, her misery was much less amplified outside. She even calmed a bit when she saw the flowers, although after we'd passed it seemed she had been most interested in the gardener, who was trimming the bushes into fearsome shapes with a pair of arm-length clipping blades. He started when he heard us, nearly slicing his arm open, and Britomart quieted again.

This gave me another idea, and we ambled our way toward the barns, Britomart’s incredible lungs turning heads all the way. We entered and I took a breath of musty hay and friendly horse. I went to the back wall.

She went silent when she saw the armor.

It hung on the back wall: countless suits and faded blades of swords and spears, glinting as far as the eye could see. At the center hung a suit of women’s armor, lovingly oiled, a simple but well-wrought sword and sheath on one side and a long, strong spear on the other.

“Child,” I murmured, “That’s your grandmother’s armor. She died defending my life, as I would die defending yours.”

It was three weeks before she cried again, and that was only because her swaddling clothes were wet.

We still had disagreements, of course, but those were ameliorated over time. It took Britomart three years to discern that my lack of orders was not at all an invitation for her to give me any, and six to stop falling out of every tree and into every available fight. As she got older and better at recognizing that when I asked things in a certain way it was better if she listened, things became easier.

Years later, when she gazed into Merlin’s mirror and fell in love with the image of the man destined to become her husband, I took a breath and led her to the barns again. There I dressed her in her grandmother’s mail and put her grandmother’s spear in her hand. Then I dressed in my old mail, and took up my sword, and followed her out into the world.

***

Source: Stories from the Faerie Queene by Mary Macleod, with drawings by A. G. Walker (1916). Untextbook. 

Week 11 Storytelling: The Chase

(Pink bike, by wirelizard via Flickr)

Paul met Rhonda on one of those early spring mornings when we took our bikes down to the Mounds for a thrill. He and I went to the Mounds because, if you went to the top of the biggest hill, you could gain enough speed coming down to get a fair bit of air at the top of the next. That’s what we were doing when she rode by on her pink monstrosity, put together as a puzzle, stately as you please.

Paul, who could get fascinated enough by one glance at a pretty girl to lose his senses for an entire day, was of course instantly enthralled. “Deacon,” he said, leaning over his bike handles, “I’ve never seen her before. Have you?”

“No,” I said. I was watching her ride away, too, skirt flapping and chrome rims flashing in the early sunlight, but unlike Paul I didn’t think the sight required hanging all over my bike to get a better view.

“You sure?”

“I’m positive. Never seen her before in my life.”

Paul was still watching her. “You should go chase her down. See if she wants to join us.”

“Hmmm,” I said. I wasn’t paying attention, being too busy worrying about what trouble Paul was going to cause this time. Having responsibility for Paul, I dealt with all the fallout from his wild plans. Catching air at the Mounds was relatively restrained; he’d done plenty of other things, both with and without me behind him complaining that he was always getting us both into trouble I always got blamed for. Like when we “accidentally” stole some guy’s car that looked like Paul’s from the parking lot at Walmart because it was white and expensive. Or like that time he acted just off enough for an entire year that I was starting to worry about drugs or something, but turns out he'd just made amends with the owner of the car (who looked suspiciously like him, down to his lying, entitled, richy-rich inner core) and they’d swapped lives for funsies.

So I should clarify: by “Paul met Rhonda” I mean “Paul chased Rhonda,” and by “Paul chased Rhonda” I really mean “Paul made me chase Rhonda.” Because things always worked out like that.

“I’m serious, Deacon,” Paul was saying. “I might die if I don’t get to know her. She looks like the kind of person who’s just…Deacon. Do you want her to get away? Do you want me to live with an eternally shattered heart?”

I almost replied that it was impossible to shatter a heart, even a one as weak as his. But he didn’t like to talk about his health problems when we were out pretending that we were normal people and it wasn’t important that he live to inherit his father’s business empire sometime in the future, so long practice ensured that I didn’t. “Fine,” I said instead. “I’m going. Say thank you.”

We were halfway up the biggest mound. I took off down the slope expecting to catch her in less than two minutes: she wasn’t going that fast, and thanks to Paul’s inability to sit still and not risk his life and limb I could keep up a pretty good pace.

An hour later, I was still following her. Not because I was slacking—I was panting like a Golden Retriever—but because, despite her apparent slowness, she had been pulling ahead of me for the past half an hour. Now she was only a faraway smudge on the horizon ahead, and my head was aching from thirst and the mid-morning heat and all I wanted was to cuss Paul out until he thought deeply about how the words “want” and “need” never appear together in a thesaurus entry.

I gave up. Paul sat up straight when he saw me coming back, but slouched back down again when he saw I was alone. “We’ll come back tomorrow,” he said.

“I’ll bring my fast bike, then.”

And the next morning I did bring my fast bike, one of the models with the skinny wheels that can go several kajillion miles per hour. Paul’s dad had spontaneously gifted it to me right after Paul discovered that biking was his new nirvana. I was afraid to know how much it had cost.

When she rode by, I climbed on and sped down the hill. I followed her for two hours, then—and every moment she pulled a little farther out in front of me. So, once again, I went back to Paul: this time with further complaints.

“You owe me big time,” I said. “I got thrown by a pebble in the road and ended up in a thistle bush.”

Paul pursed his lips. He was bad at most emotions besides manic obsession, sympathy included. “Poor Deacon. I’ll go tomorrow. You rest up.”

I almost argued. Instead, I told myself that Paul could deal with the outcome of his decisions for himself for once. So the next morning, as Rhonda pedaled past us, he was the one who took off.

He was gone for four hours. I was ready to call the hospital. But he did return, eventually, Rhonda riding slightly ahead of him, and when I’d given him the most comprehensive and threatening earful of his life he grinned at me and introduced us. “Deacon, this is Rhonda,” he said. “She says you’re very persistent. Rhonda, this is Deacon—he’s my babysitter, but I prefer to call him my right-hand man.”

“I'm your right ventricle man,” I said, "and you make my job impossible. How on earth did you catch her?”

Paul’s smile was incandescent. He looked at Rhonda. “We negotiated terms of stopping.”

Rhonda smiled back at him. She seemed fond of Paul for some reason--maybe insanity called to insanity. “Oh yes,” she said. “It’s amazing, really, what happens when you call out to a person when you want them to stop.”

***

Author's Note: this story is based off of the story "Pwyll and the Wondrous Lady" from the Mabinogion. In the story, the king Pwyll goes out to the mounds one night after dinner after being promised that men who go there either see horrible things or a marvelous sight. As he's sitting on the mound with one of his men, he sees a lady ride by on a horse and falls instantly in love. He orders his servant to catch her, but the servant can't catch up with the lady despite the fact that she doesn't seem to be going too fast. So the next day the servant brings a faster horse, but he still can't catch her. But on the third day Pwyll goes after the lady himself, and actually thinks to call out to her to stop--after which she promptly stops, turns around, and tells him that she's been riding to the mounds every day specifically so that he could see her.

What I wanted to do was take this story--which I found fairly hilarious while reading--and bring it into the present day. Thus bikes instead of horses, and Paul (sounds kind of how Pwyll looks like?) is a business guru's son with heart troubles so he needs a minder, and Rhonda being awesome and totally opinionated (which she definitely is in the Mabinogion)...

Source: "Pwyll and the Wondrous Lady." The Mabinogion, translated by Lady Charlotte Guest (1877).

Week 9 Storytelling: The Song of the Stars

(Amateur photograph of the Pleiades, via Wikipedia)

It was quiet at the end of the lake. In fact, some said that it was so quiet that some nights, when the sky was clear and the water was still, you could hear the stars singing in the sky.

When I say “Some said,” of course, what I really mean is that my mother, and her mother, and her mother, and her mother all said. They liked to tell stories, and when I was younger I liked to listen. I even believed the stories they told: about the maidens who sang and danced in the sky, and the brave and indestructible Turtle, and the swans who caught the chief’s daughter, who fell out of the sky.

Then when I was twelve I went to middle school, where real life hit me, and I didn’t believe any of the silly Indian story crap anymore. And that was that.

But was it? Those stories were, maybe, the reason why I was sitting in this cabin, at this lake, so hungry I couldn’t see straight. My family had always stayed in this cabin to fast—they were traditional and actually did things like fast and stuff, although I always believed that if my grandmother hadn’t been such a scary woman that everyone else didn’t dare to cross her and say they didn’t believe in the Old Religion, as she called it, that my family wouldn’t have been quite so traditional. In any case, the Old Religion wasn’t really like it had been before the Methodists came and the tribe moved to Kansas. We were still pretty Methodist, just with some quirks. But anyway. This was the lake that they told all the stories about. And here I was, fasting in the middle of nowhere, traditionally, because my grandmother had told me to.

And here I was, listening to a song that was so beautiful it made my teeth ache and my hair stand on end. And I had to stop myself from going outside, because I knew that I shouldn’t go back to the beach that night. Nothing good could come of falling in love with a star.

That didn’t mean I hadn’t fallen in love with her, though.

The first night I’d heard the music, I thought it was the hunger playing with my brain. I was sitting in the cabin just like I was now, with the lights off and the moonlight spilling in the window and onto the walls and floor. Everything was silent except my complaining stomach and the squeak of the leather chair beneath me when I moved. The musk of the summer night—damp, mellow dirt, dusky fur, and the sharp tang of stagnant water—had wrapped around me, and I was drowsing pleasantly, warm beneath my blanket.

Then I heard the song: faint, wistful, and old—so, so old. The kind of old that speaks to the part of you that isn’t quite your heart, blood, or body, but something else.

I was out the door before I knew what I was doing.

I had nearly reached the beach before I knew where I was going.

There on the beach were the maidens, their white coats heavy with beading, and their black braids heavy with length, all of it swinging and catching the moonlight and shimmering as they danced. There were seven of them, but they seemed like more and they moved as one, their mouths were open in that wonderful song, the music gaining strength until I didn’t think I could bear it.

I shifted. My foot knocked a pebble into a larger pebble, making a clear sound like a bell. A warning bell.

The maidens stopped dancing and glanced at one another. Then they ran—towards a basket that was standing at the edge of the water. They leapt in, dresses rippling like moonlight, their hair flapping like ravens’ wings behind them.

The basket rose up, and was gone.

I watched the spot in the sand where the basket had stood for hours afterward, the stillness pressing in on me from all around, before I turned back to the cabin. I didn’t sleep that night.

The next night I went to the beach again. And the next. It was a week for clear nights: every night the stars were shining, and the wind was calm, and the lake was still. And every night they came back to the beach, and watch them from behind the reeds as they danced, and after a while—sometimes a long while, but sometimes not—I would forget myself and make a noise. My breath would rustle the reeds. My joints would pop as I moved. Once, I turned my head too quickly and scared a bullfrog, who let out a surprised bellow and jumped back into the mud with a plop and a sucking sound.

Tonight, though, I would not go back. I had started dreaming about one of the maidens: her shy smile and the glint of humor in her eyes as she swayed and sang.

Nothing good could come of falling in love with one of the Sky People.

I went anyway, of course. I’d never had any self control. That night, I made the noise for a purpose. And, that night, I gave chase.

My fingers caught the edge of her sleeve just before she leapt into the basket. She turned to look at me, and in her eyes, instead of fear, I saw a kind of amusement.

“We were wondering when you would,” she said. “I’ve been watching you—ever since you were small, I have loved you. You stopped believing, and it nearly broke my heart. But—“ her eyes searched my face—“it’s a different sort of love now. Will you come with us?”

I swallowed. I thought of my grandmother, who would have given a toe, a leg, her life—all just to see the Sky People. She’d told me, once, that if she ever saw the face of a sky person then she might die happy, and I had thought that I would pray for them to show up so she would stop sticking around.

“Yes,” I said. And she pulled me into the basket after her.

Author's note: Once again, I am short on time when writing this, but basically this story is based on a Wyandot myth about why one star of the constellation known as the Pleiades isn't quite as bright as the others. One night, a man who is fasting in a cabin on a deserted part of a lake hears music, and goes out to investigate: he sees seven maidens dancing on the beach, but makes a noise and the maidens vanish into the sky via the basket, as in the story. For several nights he goes back, and keeps making noises, and they keep vanishing, until one night he decides that he's going to capture out of them to make his bride. So he gives chase when they run for the basket, and catches the youngest of the sisters, who says that she will only marry him if she will come live in the sky with her people. 

I wanted to pull this story into the present day, because that's something that I haven't really done yet this semester and I love seeing how some parts of the myths are compatible with modern-day stuff, and some stuff you have to think really hard about to make it fit. This story wasn't nearly as well-researched as I wanted it to be, but basically the Wyandot are also known as the Huron, and they have tribal lands in both Canada and the US--the tribe that the boy from this story belongs to was forced to emigrate to Kansas, where they founded a settlement that eventually became Kansas City. So that was interesting. And then there was all the current-day tribal stuff that I tried to get right, but I probably got wrong, so if anyone knows any better than please correct me....

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

Links that may be interesting: Wyandot History

Storytelling Week 7: The Unsung Hero(ine)

(Yamato fighting the fire. True to the theme of this entire myth, Tacibana isn't even included in the picture. Via Wikimedia Commons)

Author's Note: This week, I did the Japanese Mythology unit, and was really hit by the adventures of Yamato--but not because of Yamato; because of his wife! Princess Tacibana, in my opinion, was the real reason why Yamato accomplished anything in life, because of her incredible devotion and love for her husband. Even though he didn't appreciate her. So I decided to tell the story from her point of view, because often in the myths it was mentioned that she had done this incredible thing (like attempted to fashion a dagger to kill her captors with from her headdress, all with her hands tied behind her back!) as an afterword, after the story had followed Yamato the whole time. I was really curious: what was she thinking, as she accomplished all of these things? The dagger episode really struck me, as did--as is also mentioned in this story; it's kind of a two-part thing--the scene where she runs through a burning field to give her husband his magic sword, so he can save himself, her, and his men from the fire that has been set upon them by Yamato's enemies. 

To give some context: the first story (this version of it, anyway) takes place early on in their marriage, when Yamato, Tacibana, and a bunch of Yamato's men are traveling (in a delegation, I think?) and one of Yamato's enemies--he's always making enemies--attacks and steals Tacibana away to his tower. Yamato, on his quest to rescue her, meets a goddess, who dresses him as a woman in order that he may infiltrate the bandit's castle, get him drunk, and kill him. He finds Tacibana in the castle tower, the aforementioned dagger clutched in her teeth. The second happens when Yamato makes another enemy, Takeru, and Takeru sets fire to the field Yamato and his men are camping in one night. They're forced to shoot their horses so they don't get stampeded, and are about to give up hope before they see Tacibana running through the field towards them, Yamato's sacred sword with her, having followed them the whole way in case he might need the sword. I wanted to use a third story as well, which involves Tacibana evacuating a castle and performing a kind of exorcism of evil when a dragon attacks and her husband isn't home, but I ran out of room!

And so here is the story.

***

She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. But at least, she thought, as the door opened and her heart fluttered like a useless, clipped-wing bird in her chest, she had done so with the dagger in her mouth.

All the night she had fought with the bindings on her hands, until finally her headdress had come smashing to the ground, many brilliant jeweled sections scattering to all four corners of the room. She had been jerking at the bonds so viciously that they had bounded quite far, and one particularly pointed section had hit her in the knee, opening up a gash through both silk and flesh. As she gasped at the pain, a plan had suggested itself quietly in her mind. And so began the rest of her contortions: wrestling herself and her dress into a position where she could finally grasp the makeshift dagger in her teeth, and then wrestling herself back up to a sitting position again, her mind racing all the while, her ears ringing with every suggestion of a noise outside the treasury door. Halfway through the mess of dragging herself upright, her hair starting to come loose and tumbling into her eyes, she had cursed herself: what possible harm could she accomplish holding a dagger between her teeth? But she had made it this far already; she might as well try.

After all of this, she remembered wildly, she had been quite tired. Tired enough to fall asleep, even despite the danger, as every second passed, that Takeru would arrive again.

The door was still opening. She had barely registered her surprise as she caught a glimpse of a dress and a flash of long, loose hair before she heard the voice: “Tacibana! Princess Tacibana!”

Her body was moving faster than the rest of her: once again, she had barely enough time for another thought before she was moving again. She had gasped when she heard his voice—Yamato, she thought wildly, he’s come for me—and she gasped again as she slipped on her skirt halfway to her feet and her injured knee struck the floor. The stones were cold again where she fell, and she shivered so hard her teeth jarred against one another.

But the figure in front of her looked only vaguely like Yamato. He had somehow gotten himself dressed as a woman, and his cheeks were flushed with effort beneath his face paint. His dress was stained with blood; she hoped it was Takeru’s. In an instant, all of her worry grew wings and took flight from her chest, leaving only a nest: warm and safe and filled with humor and love. “Yamato,” she said, half-laughing. “Yamato.”

He only stared at her, his fierceness fading, half-bewildered. “Tacibana?” he asked.

She giggled again. Her heart was soaring somewhere up in the sky. He had come for her. “Yamato,” she said again. “How on earth did you run up all of those stairs in that dress?”

***

Later, the Princess Tacibana grasped frantically at the memory of that moment. Most of all, she remembered how cold it had been in the treasury. Now, with the fire singeing the soles of her feet as she ran, the hilt of the Sacred Sword singeing her hands as it swung to hit her thighs with a stinging whap with every step she took, and her breath singeing her lungs as she gasped in smoke instead of air, she was hard-pressed to remember a time when the chill had seeped into her bones so far she was numb.

The fire roared, fearsome as a dragon in full fury, and coiled around her in writhing circles in the field. It dragged its tongue up her skirt: she shed the fabric with nary a care except to save her poor body from more torture. Her skin swelled and cracked from the mere heat of the flame. She felt like a roasted cherry, her insides becoming molten just as fast as her outsides blackened and peeled. Her underdress met the same fate as her skirt as the tips of her sash and her sleeves grew smudged with flame.

Still she ran, her heart a leaping stag in her throat, feet barely skimming the smoldering grass. Until she reached him.

Yamato and his men had stopped their fight with the fire to watch her—probably, she thought, half-exasperated, all her thoughts whirling askew in her head, because I’m not wearing any clothing. Despite this, the look on her husband’s face was inscrutable: his brow was closed and stormy, his eyes faraway, as they had been since that ill-fated day when the sea goddess had made herself known to him and he had sworn he would not rest until he found her again. Tacibana threw herself at his feet, brandishing the sword somewhere in the direction of his knees with arms that felt like dead fish.

“Yamato,” she rasped out. All she could taste was copper. She wished she could peel her screaming skin off her body. Her head felt strangely light. She smiled, because she had to at the sight of his dear face. “My husband, you left your sword.”

Silently, he gazed at her. There was no sign of joyful recognition in his eyes, and nothing to suggest that once he had loved her more than anything. Then, lips tight, he took the sword from her hands—she took a moment to be grateful for the sudden loss of the burden; her arms had been shaking—and turned away. With slow, measured strokes, he began to shear off the burning grass in a circle around them.

And Tacibana lay with her protesting body pressed against the cool dirt, her hair a singed, smoking coronet around her head. Because no one was watching, she let the tears slip from her eyes. They stung her cheeks. Have faith, she told herself, he will love you again one day.

She held that thought close to her heart, and closed her eyes.

***

Source: Romance of Old Japan, Part I: Mythology and Legend by E. W. Champney and F. Champney (1917).

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 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 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 1 Storytelling: St. Ives

(Statue of Ancient Egyptian cat at the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, via Wikipedia. Redistributed under the terms of the CeCILL.

I would have stopped and bartered with the merchant, but I did not, in fact, like the look of him. His eyes glinted like coins, and his teeth flashed like knives, lining a cavernous smile. His wives outnumbered him seven to one, every one of them mounted, veiled, and trailed by seven more camels dripping with jewels, a large, gilded sack draped gracefully over each hump. Altogether, the effect was quite impressive—although, I thought, in a quiet, private part of my mind, he’ll draw thieves like a watering hole draws lions.

I did not hail him, did not stop. Instead, he hailed me.

“Young fellow!” he cried, as the ranks of his company came rippling to a halt behind him. “Young fellow, whatever your heart desires—I have it!”

My eyes came to rest dubiously on the wives. Their eyes came to rest dubiously on me, gazes sumptuous under their many-colored veils. The camels glowered at me through long lashes. I had the strangest feeling that the sacks were watching me also, but no doubt it was just my discomfort with the merchant spreading to his entourage, like one fruit spreading its rot to the others in the barrel.

My doubt as to the attractiveness of his wares must have shown in my eyes, because he was still speaking. “Perhaps a comb?” he asked. “Or a glass flower, for the lady that walks your dreams? A scarf—of the finest silk? Or a coat?” He gestured to his own, the linen stiff with lurid embroidery. “Anything, my good fellow—anything! May I ask where Your Most Noble Self is going? Are there no others in your party?”

“I travel to the Holy City,” I said, casting down my eyes. It was the barest gesture of respect, but I didn’t trust him out of my sight for longer. “And there are no others—only myself.”

He exclaimed in wonder. “A pilgrim! Then would Your Most Devout Self desire a camel? It is some ways to the Holy City, and a long walk for only two feet. I know—I left through its high gates no less than five days hence, and have traveled at full speed to reach here."

“I desire nothing, Most Salubrious Sir,” I replied. “Except, perhaps—may I ask what the sacks on your camels hold? Their contents do not seem to be coats or combs.”

“Ah—“ he said. He paused for a long moment. “The contents of the sacks are not for sale. I am most apologetic. Official business, I’m afraid; instructions from His Holiest. Not for sale. But—“ he licked his lips. “Perhaps you, Most Pious Sir, would like to see? Just for a moment, you understand.”

I wasn’t so sure the sacks didn’t hold the bodies of other Most Pious Sirs, who had similarly been tricked into looking within, but I nodded, fighting the urge to laugh at the merchant, who was trying his best to emanate Official Holiness and Grandiose Generosity yet only managing Vague Discomfort. “It would be an honor,” I managed, with the merest of lip twitches, “to know a secret which otherwise only His Holiest may know.”

“Very well, then. Aminah?” At his gesture, the smallest and brightest of his wives rode forward and dismounted. She met my eyes for a brief second—hers were the same rich brown as a camel’s—and by her gaze, wavering and wary, I knew her to be the youngest as well. Her fingers fumbled with the ties to the sack, and I tried to move unthreateningly as I stepped forward to look over her shoulder, into the mouth of the sack.

Many pairs of eyes gazed back at me, luminous and leery. Some of the cats were sleeping, but most were very alert, and quite angry with their prison: ears twitched and tails thrashed. They were the finest I had ever seen, with bright coats and proud faces, and each attempted to nurse seven kits from its precarious perch within the sack.

“Most fine, are they not?” The merchant’s arm swept into my vision, rings winking in the sunlight. “Bred by His Holiness himself. They are a present.”

A present to whom? I thought. But I took a step backwards as I nodded. “Well then,” I said, softly, tearing my gaze away from sight of Aminah tying up the sack again. “If they are not for sale, I’m afraid none of your wares can tempt me. I wish safe travels to Your Most Generous Self.”

We parted ways, him with his jingling beacon of an entourage and me in my worn clothes, alone. Several miles on, I stopped for the night. As the cool wind of the desert night swept across the sand, I opened my tattered coat and pulled out the furry body I had been cradling close to my breast. Stroking my finger across the soft dome of its head, I leaned down and breathed in the milky, musty scent of its fur. The kit rumbled contentedly in its sleep.

My lips twitched again, and this time I didn’t stifle my smile—holy cats were good luck, and this one had been bred by His Holiness. It also liked me much better than it liked the merchant.

And so not one, but two, traveled to the Holy City.

Author's Note:

This story is (very loosely) based off a nursery rhyme/riddle that goes like this:

As I was going to St. Ives,
I met a man with seven wives;
Every wife had seven sacks,
Every sack had seven cats,
Every cat had seven kits:
Kits, cats, sacks, and wives.
How many were there going to St. Ives?

I had a lot of questions about these seven lines. For instance: who is the person telling the story? Where is St. Ives? How did the man have seven wives? And how did they put cats in sacks without a lot of complaining?

Turns out, St. Ives is a small seaside town in Cornwall, England. But that didn't make any more sense for the number of wives, so I decided to take some liberties with the setting of the story: mine takes place in a kind of "fairy tale" version of the Middle East that many fairy tales/nursery rhymes from the 1800s take place in, which I want to stress is NOT culturally, religiously, linguistically, or geographically accurate. But it is very handy in a pinch. And from there, I knew my viewpoint character--he just kind of appeared as I started writing, complete with wry humor and pick-pocketing skills (although I suppose in this case they could be called kit-pocketing skills?)--and the story began to take shape.

Bibliography:

Author Unknown. (1897) "As I Was Going to St. Ives". The Nursery Rhyme Book. Ed. by Andrew Lang. Via Project Gutenberg.