Week 7 Reading: Japanese Mythology A
Today's bits of stories do not necessarily help toward my project particularly, but they do offer a not only interesting but unique set of qualities to them that are intriguing as a reader and a writer. I've had my mind on a short fable-like story, so many of the more folklore-y stories lately have been helping to develop it for a finally original story.
The one story that checked many of my favorite boxes this time around was the story of The Eight-Forked Serpent of Koshi. I'm always a sucker for monster-slaying, and especially for the use of trickery therein. When dealing with gods in stories, it can be difficult to split the whole "omnipotent god" idea away from the reading - after all, if they were omnipotent, we wouldn't have any sort of interesting story! This particular story offers no shortage of gods - the gods are the characters needing help, providing it, and the one causing the destruction. It's no sort of divine power that defeats the Great Serpent, but the trick of getting it drunk in eight separate doors that bests the demon. The story ends with a happy marriage (if you've read my previous notes, you'll know this is how I explain mythology is sexist in all too many places), as well as the miraculous recovery of a legendary weapon, two more favorite tropes of mine.
While this story doesn't necessarily match the fairy tale/fable focus I was thinking about this week, it still provides a wonderful tale from one of my favorite cultures in the world. It's always interesting to see how different places in the world view their mythological "past" - almost like a reflection on their own self. Overall, I always love heroic tales, and I cannot be stopped in reading about them then proceeding to write about loving them.
Bibliography: Untextbook
 |
| Susanoo and the Serpent |
The one story that checked many of my favorite boxes this time around was the story of The Eight-Forked Serpent of Koshi. I'm always a sucker for monster-slaying, and especially for the use of trickery therein. When dealing with gods in stories, it can be difficult to split the whole "omnipotent god" idea away from the reading - after all, if they were omnipotent, we wouldn't have any sort of interesting story! This particular story offers no shortage of gods - the gods are the characters needing help, providing it, and the one causing the destruction. It's no sort of divine power that defeats the Great Serpent, but the trick of getting it drunk in eight separate doors that bests the demon. The story ends with a happy marriage (if you've read my previous notes, you'll know this is how I explain mythology is sexist in all too many places), as well as the miraculous recovery of a legendary weapon, two more favorite tropes of mine.
While this story doesn't necessarily match the fairy tale/fable focus I was thinking about this week, it still provides a wonderful tale from one of my favorite cultures in the world. It's always interesting to see how different places in the world view their mythological "past" - almost like a reflection on their own self. Overall, I always love heroic tales, and I cannot be stopped in reading about them then proceeding to write about loving them.
Bibliography: Untextbook
Hi Gage,
ReplyDeleteI also chose do the Japanese mythology reading this week, and so I thought it would be interesting to read your thoughts about it. You definitely chose to highlight a different part of the stories than I did, but your thoughts about the Eight-Forked Serpent story have kind of forced me to look at the story from a different angle. I kind of want to go back and re-read it now! I like how analytically you look at the story and break it down into different tropes. I'll be interested to see if this story resurfaces in any of your writing!