Week 5 Storytelling : Tea party

In the center of the forest, few animals gathered. There was a huge round table. On the left side of the table, a wise monkey and a goose with golden feathers sat. On the right side, a rabbit and a goose with white feather sat. They were facing each others.


"Welcome to my tea party."


A monkey started the conversation.


"Today, we will talk about the stupidity, anyone have a story to share?"


A wise monkey asked. A golden goose raised his left wing as if he was eager to share his story.


"Yes, a goose with beautiful golden feather. What is your story?"


"I want to talk about this stupid mother, whom I pitied from the bottom of my heart, before "this" happened."


The goose started a story. He explained how he wanted to help a poor family as a favor.


"Greed is the most terrifying stupidity. It makes your mind to go blind, so you will no longer see what is there for you."

The golden goose said angrily. The goose with white feathers agreed.


"I cannot agree more. This 'greed' thing is absolute non-sense. Somehow it turns our 'favors' to their 'rights'. They think what we are giving them is something they deserve."


The white goose pointed at his stomach. His stomach was stitched up as if someone had cut his belly. He was a goose who laid the golden eggs for humans, until they wanted more and decided to cut through his stomach to get more golden eggs.


"My poor duck friends!"


Rabbit shouted.


"We are not ducks"


Both Geese yelled back.


"Duck, goose, whichever you are. I pity you guys, but I do not agree with your greed thing is the most stupid thing in the world."


Rabbit spoke. The geese then asked, what was the stupidest thing in the world. Rabbit replied with the word "gullibility"


"This turtle, who came out to surface and tricked me, wanted my liver. I said I left my liver in my house, and he believed it. Of course, a slow turtle like him would have never seen my shadow after that day."


Rabbit said proudly. Monkey clapped and laughed.


"This crocodile thought I left my heart in my house. I agree, gullibility is the stupidest thing in the world!"


The geese shook their heads. They could not agree. All of them started to argue to decide what was the stupidest thing.

Their argument lasted quite awhile. They decided to ask someone else to decide. They found a wolf who had a body of fish in his mouth. They stopped him and asked which was the stupidest thing in the world; gullibility or greed.


The wolf stared at them for a second. He shrug his shoulders.


"I do not know which one is more stupid, but I can tell you the stupidest thing you can do is to ask a wolf to divide a fish."


His eyes pointed at his fish. As he left with laughter.

(A wolf by Jordan Crowe)

Author's note: Three of these characters or animals are from the stories of the Jakata's Tale. Two of the animals such as a rabbit and the goose were from the other folktale from other culture. However, although characters are different type of animals, the stories from both culture is very similar. The monkey tricked the crocodile with his heart and the rabbit tricked the turtle with his liver. Both geese produced something golden for their humans but humans wanted more, which eventually made them lose what the geese were offering to humans. The wolf is the story that I have never heard of similar story with. For his story, he went out to haunt a fish, but when he got there two otters asked the wolf to split the fish for them because they could not decide who should get the better part of the fish: the head. In the original story, the wolf took entire body of the fish and gave them the head and the tail. Only head and tail without any meat of the body! I thought that was hilarious and I thought those otters were quite stupid. I wanted to write the story over the similar characters gather to have a chat. 

Bibliography: Jataka's Tale written by Ellen Babbit

Week 5 Reading Diary : Jataka's Tale continued

This is a diary over continues reading for a Indian tale: Jataka's Tale. This tale has a lot of stories. I have selected few stories that I really like.

First story is the golden goose. Just like the crocodile and monkey, I know a tale over the goose which laid an golden egg. Both story is similar, where a poor family had a goose who brings them the fortune. However, the greedy of a person or human always ruined what they already have. From the paragraph,"But one day the mother said to her daughters: "Let us not trust this Goose. Some day he may fly away and never come back. Then we should be poor again. Let us get all of his feathers the very next time he comes." This is what happened to a goose with golden eggs. People wanted more, people thought they deserve more although it was a goose who were providing them with its favor.

"Now the Golden Goose has strange feathers. If his feathers are plucked out against his wish, they no longer remain golden but turn white and are of no more value than chicken-feathers. The new ones that come in are not golden, but plain white."

Eventually a goose ran away in this story, and a goose die in the other story. But from both stories we could learn that greed will ruin what you already have.

The second story I love is the Otters and the Wolf. I have no other story that is similar to that but I like how smart wolf was. I liked how it is not a conflict between wolf and the other animal, where wolf has to haunt them down but he used his smartness to obtain what he wanted.

"The Wolf was pleased and said to himself, as he ran toward home, "Now I have fresh fish for my mate." His mate, seeing him coming, came to meet him, saying: "How did you get fish? You live on land, not in the water." Then he told her of the quarrel of the Otters. "I took the fish as pay for settling their quarrel," said he."


I would like to write a story over a goose and wolf or other animals from the other stories where they might have a tea party and share their story.

(A smart wolf by Mark Dumont)

From Jataka's Tale by Ellen Babbit

Week 5 Reading Diary: Jataka Tales: The Monkey and the Crocodile

This is the reading diary over the Indian reading unit. The story had full of mini-stories or sub stories. There are few stories that I like.

The first one is monkey and crocodile. I am familiar with this story. I am from Korea, and Korean folklore had one of the similar story. Instead of crocodile, it was a turtle, and instead of monkey, it was a rabbit. I found amused how two different region had such a similar story.

I loved the part where monkey lied to the crocodile. In Korean story, instead of heart it was a liver of the rabbit that turtle wanted. Rabbit said the same thing that monkey said in this story, that he or she left his or her liver in the house and turtle took the rabbit home and rabbit escaped.

"I wish you had told me you wanted my heart," said the Monkey, "then I might have brought it with me." "How queer!" said the stupid Crocodile. "Do you mean to say that you left your heart back there in the tree?" "That is what I mean," said the Monkey. "If you want my heart, we must go back to the tree and get it. But we are so near the island where the ripe fruit is, please take me there first."

However, for the rabbit and turtle story, there was no continuing story. I liked how they continued the story to emphasized the stupidity of crocodile.

The second story I liked was Ox Who Envied the pig. This story had the special meaning in the story. First, I loved ho they gave name to the oxen. "ONCE upon a time there was an Ox named Big Red. He had a younger brother named Little Red. These two brothers did all the carting on a large farm." Then I liked how much deep meaning was in the story. "Yes," said the little brother, "we can go on eating plain food for years, but the poor little Pig ate the food of death and now he is dead. His feed was good while it lasted, but it did not last long."


I would like to write a story over many animals gathered and talk about their life since all these stories had animals to act like human.

(A Crocodile on the rock by Tambako The Jaguar)

From Jataka Tales by Ellen Babbit

Tech Tip Google Site Title

I have changed my page titles but I would like to keep the site title as Fred's Storybook for now.

Tech Tip : GoogleSite Choosing a template/theme

I have changed a template for a new website.

Week 4, Tech tip Creating a google website

This is my website!
Fred's Storybook

Week 4 Storytelling : Oxen

Once upon time, there was a guy named Bata. Bata was a brother of Anpu. He was also a hard worker and laborer for his brother, Anpu. Although Bata was working for his older brother, who is enjoying his life with easy works, a beautiful wife, while Bata was sleeping outside of the house, Bata loved his brother and never felt that was unfair.

In fact, he was happy with what he got. Although he did not have a fancy house or a beautiful wife, he got his cattles.

One day, Bata had to visit Anpu's house. He needed to pick up some foods to feed his cattles. They helped him a lot during his labor. Bata asked Anpu, and Anpu agreed. However, that day, Anpu was working in the field along with Bata. Therefore, when Bata went to Anpu's house, the only person who was in the house was Anpu's wife.

"Greeting, sister-in-law"

Bata gave casual hi to Anpu's wife. Anpu's wife stared at Bata as if she was asking why Bata was in her house. Bata explained his reason. He went to the storage and picked up some barley and wheat.

"You are a strong man."

A wife noticed that he was way stronger than her husband, Anpu. That attracted her attention. She decided to seduce Bata. However, Bata refused.


"How dare you refuse me, you are going to do exactly what I tell you to do, just like usual."

"I will listen to any words from you, but I will not play with a trust of my brother."


They started to argue.
And there were oxen. Because Bata was taking a long time, they were concerned. They decided to go to Anpu's house to help Bata.


"Can you tell what is going on? Oxy"


A ox with a bright hair asked while he was watching Bata's argument through the window.


"Looks like they are fighting, Oxay"


The other ox with black hair replied.


"Oh, no, Oxy! What are we going to do?"


"We can't do anything, we are oxen."


Therefore, oxen decided to do nothing. However, because two of oxen were gone for awhile, a older brother, Anpu realized something was wrong.

Anpu figured out his brother was taking too long as well. So he decided to go back to his house.


"What are you two doing here?"


Anpu found two oxen in front of his house. He asked.


"We are just being oxen...by doing nothing."


Oxy replied. Oxay shook her head.


"We were watching two of them arguing."


"Arguing?"


Oxay pointed Bata and a wife. Anpu looked through the window. And that moment, he could hear Bata's yelling.


"You are a mother to me, and my brother is a father to me. I will pretend I did not hear any of your words!"


It took awhile for Anpu to realize what was going on. After he figured out what was going on, he opened the door of his house.

It was at the moment his wife fell. She started to cry as Anpu walked in. Anpu saw Bata who was afraid to be asked about the situation.


"What is going on?"


Anpu asked as if he knew nothing. His wife started to explain how Bata was trying to harass her. Bata remained silent. Anpu nodded. He waited until she finished. He approached his wife, and smiled.


"Honey, I heard everything."

(Oxen by Mark Goebel)

Author's Note: The story is based on Egyptian myth. The background of the myth is about two brother Anpu and Bata who were separated because of the evil actions that were caused by Anpu's wife nad Anpu's distrust over Bata. Although there were more story over this brothers but I thought the most important part of the story was the beginning. The background story over my storytelling is only over the first two parts of The Two Brothers. From the original story, Anpu's wife seduced Bata, but Bata refused and decided to keep this as a secret because he respected Anpu's wife and did not want to turn back on his brother. However, Anpu's wife felt violated by getting rejected by Bata, so she decided to lie to Anpu, so her action could be a hidden secret for rest of her life. She wanted Bata dead. Anpu, the older brother actually believed in his wife's lie which eventually made the little brother, Bata, to leave his side. As a reader who seeks for a happy ending, I wanted to write a story where Bata and Anpu can stay together. From the original story, oxen help Bata when Anpu was chasing him with a dagger, in this episode oxen help Bata by doing nothing!

Bibliography:  Mackenzie's Egyptian Myth and Legend