Reading Notes: China, Part B

"The Sorcerer of the White Lotus Lodge" tells the tale of, surprise, a sorcerer who is a part of the White Lotus Lodge. He is known to deceive many people and has many students learning the ark arts from him. One day before going out, he put a bowl down and covered it with another bowl. He ordered his pupils to watch the bowl and not touch it. They of course open it to find water and a small boat, which they play with. The sorcerer returns angry that they disobeyed him, telling them his ship capsized at sea. Another night, he lit and candle and told his students to make sure it does not go out. They get tired and go to bed before he returns. The candle had gone out, so they relit it. The sorcerer returns mad and tells them he had to walk in the dark for fifteen miles. When one of the pupils insults the sorcerer, the sorcerer says nothing. Soon after, he sends the pupil to feed the pigs and turns the student into a pig when he enters the sty. The sorcerer sells him to a butcher. The student's father asks where his son is and the other students tell him what happened. The father tells the district mandarin what happened, and he then informs his supervisor. Thousands of soldiers surround the sorcerer's house and arrest him, his wife, and their child. As they are being transported to the capital, a giant which the sorcerer calls the mountain spirit blocks the road; he says his wife can get him to leave. The giant swallows her when she tries, their son is also swallowed when he tries. The sorcerer himself says he will try to fight the giant and is eaten. The soldiers then realize that they have been tricked.

I think I would like to retell this story by having it set at a boarding school. When the father showed up, it made me think of a teen mystery or murder case.

White Lotus by Engin_Akyurt

Story source: The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).

Comments

Reading Notes: Nursery Rhymes, Part B

In the "Jingles" section of the Nursery Rhymes unit, there are several well-known tales. The first is "Hey Diddle Diddle." HEY! diddle, diddle, The cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon; The little dog laugh'd To see the sport, While the dish ran after the spoon. The next is "Tweedledum and Tweedledee." TWEEDLE-DUM and Tweedle-dee Resolved to have a battle For Tweedle-dum said Tweedle-dee Had spoiled his nice new rattle. Just then flew by a monstrous crow As big as a tar-barrel, Which frightened both the heroes so They quite forgot their quarrel. Another is "Rub-a-dub-dub." RUB a dub dub, Three men in a tub: And who do you think they be? The butcher, the baker, The candlestick-maker; Turn 'em out, knaves all three! As I said in the other reading post about the Nursery Rhymes unit, I think it would be difficult to write my own jingles inspired by these. They are all fairly short and follow a similar rhyme scheme. Th...

Story Lab: TED Talk Videos

For this Story Lab, I watched Ted Talks about stories and storytelling . The first video is the TED Talk of a woman named Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie from Nigeria. From a young age, she has been a storyteller. She read foreign books for much of her childhood and based the stories she wrote based on what she read in these books. She eventually discovered books and she learned that writers could look like her. When she came to university in the United States, her roommate was surprised to learn Nigeria has English as an official language and that she was familiar with many of the comforts of American life. She believes people like her roommate have a view of Africans because of writing that portrays them as living in a dark place. When Chimamanda wrote a book, her professor told her the book was not "African enough" because the characters were similar to him, a middle-class man, and they drove cars. When she visited Mexico, she realized she saw the people there as poor immigran...

Reading Notes: Ancient Egypt, Part A

In the story " The Death of Osiris ," Osiris's brother, Set, creates an ornate chest that match Osiris's exact dimensions. During a large feast, Set tells everyone that whoever's dimensions are a perfect match for the chest will be gifted the chest. All the guests tried fitting in the chest, but none fit. Finally, Osiris tries laying in it and fits perfectly. Before he can get out, however, the "evil followers" of Set nail Osiris into the chest, killing him. The party quickly becomes filled with sorrow rather than joy, and Osiris and his coffin are put in the Nile, which they float down until they set sail in the ocean. I think it would be interesting to tell a similar story to this one, in which people thought someone was doing a good deed for society, but it is secretly a sinister act. I could use the same basic premise by having someone create an object that is unknowably created for one specific person, people trying to win this object, and ...

Shea's Myth-Folk Blog

Search This Blog