Reading Notes: Anthology

Origins

The Man in the Moon

• man was unhappy in his life and
• kept requesting changes until eventually he was stuck as the moon

The Divine

• a man finds a couple weeping over their daughter
• they say this is their 8th daughter and an 8 headed/tailed monster has killed the other 7 
• the man says he will help and receive the girls hand in marriage in return
• he turns the girl into a comb and sticks her in his hair
• he has the wife make 8 fold strength sake and put it in 8 barrels
• the monster arrives and drinks the sake and becomes drunk and falls asleep
• then the man slays him and finds a sword in the final tail and gives it to the gods in the heavens.

The supernatural

The Indian Who Wrestled With a Ghost

• native american
• man wanders in woods and is awoken to screams of a woman, he then sees her above him and she picks up and drops his feet to see he if he is dead
• she then tries to stab him and he scares her off
• the next night a stranger came to him and asks for food and he says no but the stranger was a ghost and knew he did so he shared
• the ghost was just bones and did not need to exhale the smoke. 
• he then asked to wrestle the man and if the man won he would kill his enemy and steal some horses
• the man was losing but realized the ghost was weakened by the brightness of fire and kicked more brush into his fire and defeated the ghost
• he later defeated his enemy and stole some horses so this is why people believe the word of ghosts

Metamorphosis

Pygmalion

note: I found this story more unsettling than charming but enjoyed it none the less

• Pygmalion swears off women seeing as how he saw so many grow to be wicked at heart
• he crafts a statue of a woman so realistic he begins to fall in love with it
• he clothes it and adorns it with jewelry and brings it gifts that living girls would like
• he calls it his bedfellow
• at the festival of Venus he prays for a girl like his ivory one
• Venus is there and hears this and understanding he wants HIS ivory girl she brings her to life
• the are wed and nine months later the formerly ivory girl bears a son Paphos of which the island is named.

Pygmalion priant Vénus d'animer sa statue by Jean Baptiste Regnault Source.

Fables

Lion

• even love can tame the wildest beasts
• we can present things how we want them to be seen even if not true
• gratitude is a sign of good people
• even though we work hard we do not always get our fair share of the reward

Bibliography

• The Man in the Moon, Laos Folk-Lore by Katherine Neville Fleeson (1899) Source.
• Romance of Old Japan, Part I: Mythology and Legend by E. W. Champney and F. Champney (1917)Source.
• The Indian Who Wrestled with with a Ghost, Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Katharine Berry Judson (1913) Source
• Pygmalion, Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Tony Kline (2000 )Source.
• Aesop Fables: The Lion, The Fables of Aesop by Joseph Jacobs (1894) Source.