Week 12 Lab: Six-Word Memoirs

 Six-Word Memoirs

Blank card, ready for a new story. (Pixabay)

So, for this week's story lab, I read up on NPR's website about six-word memoirs. I really liked this concept. I have seen it on social media a lot, but have never tried it myself. I think it makes story-telling even more meaningful. You only have six words, to sum up everything you are feeling or thinking. This makes the six words you string together much more valuable than the normal-sized novel or story you would write to explain a whole scenario or concept. The most intriguing ones for me were ones that tried to sum up their whole life's experience. I think it really resonated with me and how I want to be in my writing. I want it to be valuable and mean something. I think I would like to do a microfiction of my favorite fictional characters and do a six-word story or memoir for each of them. I think it would be very entertaining and will definitely be something I will be looking forward to doing for this class. This activity will help me to become a better, more creative, and concise writer in my opinion. I am looking forward to the challenge of starting to write microfictions like the six-word story.  

Celtic Fairy Tales Reading: Part B

 Celtic Fairy Tales

Cover of the "Celtic Fairy Tales" book. (Source: Mythology Untextbook Unit )

King O'Toole and His Goose

-"OCH, I thought all the world, far and near, had heerd o' King O'Toole — well, well, but the darkness of mankind is untellable!"

-owned the churches

-loved hunting

-had a pet goose that entertained him when he got old and couldn't hunt anymore

-Saint Kavin

-Saint Kavin says will make the goose good as new if the king will give him the land she flies around after shes better

The Shee An Gannon and the Gruagach Gaire

-Fairy of Gannon and the Laughin Goblin

-asked the king of Erin to marry his daughter

-king told him that if he could find out what made the goblin stop laughing he could marry her, if he didn't, he would behead him

-fairy starts working for the goblin

-Land of the Giant

-five-headed giant 

Beth Gellert

-prince Llewelyn had a greyhound named Gellert

-called for Gellert but he never came

-went hunting but came back angry

-when he came back, found the dog covered in blood

-went to sons nursery and saw chaos

-"Monster, thou hast devoured my child," he drew out his sword and plunged it in the greyhound's side, who fell with a deep yell and still gazing in his master's eyes."

-Beth Gellert- "Grave of Gellert"

The Tale of Ivan 

-Cornish Tale

-Market Jew- nothing to do with Jews, "Marghas Yow,"-means Thursday Market

-Llanlavan Chyannor

-3 pounds for a year's wages at the farm for Ivan

-"Never leave the old road for the sake of a new one."

-"Never lodge where an old man is married to a young woman."

-"Honesty is the best policy."

Andrew Coffey

-whole barony-repeated 

-quiet decent man

-got lost in the woods and found a cabin

-heard his name being called

-"better see, than be seen"

-dreamed the whole ordeal

Brewery of Eggshells

-Welsh changeling story

-Place of Strife

-"old elves of the blue petticoat"

-"Wise Man of Llanidloes, for he knew everything and would advise her what to do."

-"So she went back into the house, seized the children, and threw them into the lake, and the goblins in their blue trousers came and saved their dwarfs and the mother had her own children back and so the great strife ended."

Bibliography-

Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs, with illustrations by John D. Batten (1892). 

Celtic Fairy Tales Reading: Part A

 Celtic Fairy Tales

Silver-Tree in the glen. (Source: The Untextbook )

Connla and The Fairy Maiden 

-Connla of the Fiery Hair

-Conn of the Hundred Fights

-Plains of the Ever-Living- "Where there is neither death nor sin"

-Hill Folk

-interesting names 

-old language 

-only Connla saw the Fairy Maiden 

-Plain of Pleasure- Moy Mell

-Boadag is king

-"Oh, come with me, Connla of the Fiery Hair, ruddy as the dawn with thy tawny skin. A fairy crown awaits thee to grace thy comely face and royal form. Come, and never shall thy comeliness fade, nor thy youth, till the last awful day of judgment."

-Coran-Druid

-"by woman wiles and witchery"

-Coran got rid of the maiden and the maiden threw an apple at him

-Connla ate only from the apple and ate and drank nothing else for a month, his longing for the fairy maiden grew

-"Tis a glorious place, forsooth, that Connla holds among short-lived mortals awaiting the day of death. But now the folk of life, the ever-living ones, beg and bid thee come to Moy Mell, the Plain of Pleasure, for they have learnt to know thee, seeing thee in thy home among thy dear ones."

-maiden called druid "false black demon"

-curragh-a canoe

The Field of Boliauns

-lady-day - Feast of the Annunciation- angel Gabriel told Mary of Jesus' birth

-Tom Fitzpatrick

-"clacking sort of noise"

-"stonechatters"

-brown pitcher that might hold a gallon and a half of liquor 

-Leprachaun description

-"They say a body must never take their eyes off them, or they'll escape."

-good beer in the pitcher

-made beer out of heath

-boliaun-pot

The Horned Women

-Witch of One Horn

-Witch of Two Horns

-12 women all with horns, last had 12 horns

-Mistress of house felt near death from witchs' spell

-"The mountain of the Fenian women and the sky over it is all on fire."

-Slievenamon- their main home 

-the Spirit of the Well

-feet-water

-feet-water, beam, and cake all talk back to the witches

The Shepherd of Myddvai 

-Black Mountains in Caermarthenshire lies the lake known as Lyn y Van Vach

-3 maidens from lake

-shepherd fell in love with one of the maidens

-maiden said she would marry him and be with him but he couldn't strike her 3 times (familiar to other stories I've read)

-sons became Meddygon Myddvai, the physicians of Myddvai

The Sprightly Tailor

-the great Macdonald

-told tailor to make trews at night in a haunted church

-ghost appears

-the "fearsome thing" ran after the tailor after he left the church and gave chase

Munachar and Manachar 

-starts off like an original fairytale

-inanimate objects talking (rod,axe,flag,water, butter, milk)

-talking animals (deer, hound, cat, cow)

-repetitive, always adding a new character 

- threshers, miller

-Manachar bursts before Munachar can get everything he needs to hang him on a gad

Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree

-starts with "Once upon a time.."

-silver-tree is mother, gold-tree daughter

-trout in the glen they go to tells silver-tree that her daughter is prettier than her

-a prince from far off ask to marry gold-tree and the king approves

-king gave her the heart and liver of a he-goat instead

-siler-tree begs king for a ship and they go visit their daughter

-gold-tree locked herself in her room when they came

-mother teicked her and stuck her finger with poison that killed her

-prince didn't bury her, but locked her in her room where she was

-prince marries again and second wife finds the room where gold-tree is

-she takes the poison out of her finger and gold-tree lives again

-prince keeps both wives

-repetitive

-"The prince and his two wives were long alive after this, pleased and peaceful. I left them there."

Bibliography-

Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs, with illustrations by John D. Batten (1892).