Week 13: Extra Reading Diary

For my extra reading diary this week, I thought it would be fun to look into the Italian Popular Tales unit. The description underneath the length really persisted me to look into it. I wanted to read the Italian version of Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty. I thought it would be a lot of fun, and I definitely wanted to know if it's any different from the version that I know of both of those stories. After looking over the chapters, I was a little confused at first since I did not see those stories that attracted me to the unit in the first place, but was relieved that the description mentioned what stories were equivalents to those. The first story I read was Zelinda and the Monster, which was much like Beauty and the Beast. There were some aspects that were huge changes in the story, such as the location of where the location of the Beast was. The Beast, or in this story the Dragon, could not leave the garden in the story. So, unlike a palace, the main setting was in a garden. Another difference, which I already sort of went over, was that instead of the beast that we know of in the story, the beast was a dragon. The story was pretty similar other than those aspects though. I really enjoyed this one, as well as the others I read. All of the stories seemed similar to stories I already know, but had their fun little differences to make it an interesting read.

(Rosenrot)

Week 13: Reading Diary B

For my second reading diary this week, I will be finishing up my thoughts on Lang's European Fairy Tales I. After reading the first half of the unit, I was really excited to finish it up. There seemed to be a lot of fun titles that had me really intrigued before I started. The Death of the Sun-Hero was probably one of my favorites from the second half of this unit. The name, itself, was very interesting. The Prince in the story really seemed like something else. By twenty, he was the greatest hero in the kingdom. He must have been quite a catch. After reading on a little, the dream that the Queen and King had seemed kind of too good to be true. It made me think that something bad might happen at the end of the story. The Prince ventured out to find a Tree of the Sun. Only by protection this tree for nine days and nights, would the Prince be able to call himself the Sun-Hero. He had to fend the tree off from getting damaged by wolves. It was a pretty difficult task to defend a tree for more than eight nights. The Prince definitely needed to sleep. I ended up being right after all though. The tree in the story got damaged and the Prince was sentenced to death. It took a while for that order to be carried out, but in the end, the Prince still got what he deserved. Maybe he shouldn't have taken on the name Sun-Hero without earning it first.

(The cool sun)

Week 13: Reading Diary A

This week I decided to take a look at Lang's European Fairy Tales I. Over this semester, I've gotten to take a look at a multitude of units involving fairy tales. This one was no different. I was really interested in seeing what the European fairy tales hold, and whether I could find different stories to which I haven't heard before. Overall, my reading of the first half of this unit was very good. I did come across one story that was my favorite from the first half of the unit.

The first story I really liked was the very first story in the unit, The Master Cat, or Puss in Boots. The very first sentence of the story made me chuckle a little:

"There was a miller who left no more estate to the three sons he had than his mill, his ass, and his cat."

I mean who wouldn't find that funny. This definitely painted a nice picture for the story. As the story went on, it got a little more into the son who acquired the cat. He, of course, thought the cat was going to be completely useless to him. The cat overheard his owner say this and decided to make a case for himself. He asked for a bag and pair of boots. Then he would prove himself to his owner. I don't want to spoil the entire story, so I figured the rest can be left up to your imagination. Cats are very cunning, so his statement was a little peculiar to me. He could very well be telling the truth though.

(Puss-in-Boots)