Week 6: Reading Diary B

For my reading diary this week I decided to read Japanese Mythology. After reading the first half of this unit, I was very excited to finish things up. I've always been very interested in mythology, as well as the whole god and goddess aspect intertwined with it. It was nice to see how these items are displayed in asian culture. The first story that I really enjoyed reading was the Labors of Yamato - the Grass-Cleaving Sword. Honestly when I first saw this title, I did not know what to expect. This story was full of suspense and I just wanted to keep reading more. Obviously, after reading the story, the name was quite literal with the grass-cleaving sword part. Yamato did really mow down the grass with his sword, luckily creating a safety area within a blaze. This was so interesting to read. I honestly thought the princess came out of no where, but it was a very nice addition.

(Yamamoto Takeru no mikoto between burning grass)

The second story I really enjoyed was yet another story about Yamato, the Labors of Yamato - the Dragon.  I was really excited to get to this story, especially since I do have a little obsession with dragons. You can definitely thank Game of Thrones for that. I thought that it was already going bad when Yamato decided to go and punish the sorceress. Nothing ever goes to plan when you want to do that. As usual, the sorceress fled and became a dragon. This seems very typical for these kinds of stories, but also very entertaining.