Reading Notes: Nigerian Folk Stories, Part A

· This reminds me of the story of Samson and Delilah. I wonder if I can take the same concept but transpose it to a modern, less dark tale? Similarly, I could take the moral (“never marry a stranger, no matter how pretty she may be”) and write a different story to match it.

· The second story was the sad one about the rat and the bat. I guess I could do something about a friend betraying his friend…

· The moral of this story is also not to marry strangers. Once again, I could take that theme and run with it. Maybe they could end up marrying someone with one extremely eccentric and unforeseen habit or something.

· What if instead they passed a law that you could only have one wife at a time?

· Wow, I’m sad for all of the wives and mad at the king.

· What if I made the king into a little boy with toys instead, or something like that?

· I’m a bit confused about what Okun Archibong had thought, and what he was trying to accomplish. I guess I could write a story about a meddlesome person who gets his comeuppance (like Effiong Edem). Also, the theme about who you marry came up again.

· Wasn’t the leopard’s wife also in the wrong?

· The elephant and worm story about their eyes makes me very sad L.

· I think the hawk and hen story could be seen as yet another variation of why to not marry a story. Once again I could do a variation of that story. Or I could just pick some trait or interaction of animals and explain it through story.

· I’m saddened by the cat and rat story. Could I rewrite it where the king feels sorry for the rat and his girl, so he pays for them to be wed, or some other happy ending like that? Like, one that involves mercy instead of punishment?

(Oguta Lake, Nigeria)

Bibliography: Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria, by Elphinstone Dayrell.

Reading Notes: Japanese Fairy Tales (Ozaki), Part A

· His name is “My Lord Bag of Rice.” What if I told a story where he has a very similarly strange name, with some different back-story?

· For some reason, it stands out to me that the Dragon King is more concerned that he may eventually be carried off than that his children are being carried off.

· He said he would grant the King’s request if he could before he heard what it was. That’s a big no-no in quests.

· What if actually the Dragon King is evil and the centipede is good, but Hidesato blindly trusts the King? Could I write a story to that effect?

· I liked how well described the centipede was. He sounded genuinely terrifying and awful.

· I also like how he needed to find a trick (the human saliva thing) rather than just being able to kill it by brute force.

· What if I write a story where Hidesato doesn’t like fish? That would make everything less pleasant.

· So the way I would change his name would be by, I suppose, giving him different gifts. What if I wrote about the aftermath of his deeds, except he got super weird and inconvenient gifts and now he’s not sure what to do with them? Like a pot that always turned out desserts, but only totally gross desserts, like garlic ice cream or something?

· Or again, what if I told stories about Kintaro, but with very different animal friends?

· Also, it doesn’t seem fair for a bear to wrestle a hare.

· I feel like the wrestling matches sound like they would potentially leave hard feelings between various members of the group.

· It’s weird that the man just went into the cottage, and I want him to be Kintaro’s dad, even though Kintaro’s dad is dead.

· What if I change the animals and have them pit against each other at a game of chess or something, instead of wrestling?

(illustration from the book)

Bibliography:  Japanese Fairy Tales, retold by Yei Theodora Ozaki