Essay: Celtic Fairy Tales

The reading unit I chose this week was Celtic Fairy Tales because I have always had an interest in Celtic traditions and reading these stories gave me more insight on tales that have been passed down for generations. I wish there were more stories that talked about specific Celtic tales like the origin of the Celtic knot or the Claddagh Ring. Regardless, the short stories within this unit were still great to read because they had some spiritual tales as well as real life situations. An example of a story that was spiritual was the story of The Horned Women, which was about a woman who lived alone in a village. She allowed these witches who came into her door one by one because she thought one of the villagers called upon them and the witches got confused on the houses. The weird thing about the witches, however, was that they all had horns which seemed to range from the first witch that went into the home had only one horn. With each witch that came in, the more horns they had. So the last witch had twelve horns because she was the 12^th witch to walk into the house. The witches casted a spell on the woman of the house to do their bidding. When they commanded the woman to bake a cake, she went to the well to fetch water and the spirit from the well broke the spell and got rid of the witches. The story that seemed the most realistic was Beth Gellert, which is about a Prince who had a favorite dog. One day, the Prince went hunting and all his dogs went with him except for his favorite, Gellert, because he wouldn’t come to him when he called for the dogs. When the Prince returned from hunting, he saw Gellert with blood all over him so the Prince looked in his child’s room to see blood everywhere, which made him believe Gellert killed his son. In anger, the Prince killed his dog but then looked under the crib and found his son and a dead wolf. After he realized Gellert killed the wolf to protect the son, he was torn apart inside and then buried him outside the castle walls so people could visit his grave.

Trinity Knot (2005).

Week 12 Storytelling: The Haunting

I thought I chose a safe place to live. The advertisements in the paper said the neighborhood was safe, safe enough to raise a family. But they were wrong.

            My two children and I moved into a new neighborhood about a month ago. My oldest child is 10 and her name is Beth and Derek is only 6. We decided to move because I was able to afford an actual house and I wanted my children to experience the luxuries of living in a place where they could call home since, in the past, we would constantly move around to different small apartments. Because the house came at a cheep price, I asked the relator for the reasoning behind the low price on the house and all she said was that people never staid long. I wish I had asked more because if I did, I wouldn't have risked my children's life or my own. 

            The first few days, everything went so smoothly. Beth and Derek started their new school and immediately made friends and were happy with their teachers. I started to work at my new job as a college advisor for high school students. The students and coworkers were very nice and friendly. Because everyone was so nice in school and work, it seemed like everyone in town was nice, except the neighbors.  I tried introducing my children and myself but they would rudely shut the door. Sometimes I would see them looking at our house when they passed by and they looked frightened, like something had happened or that they knew something that we didn’t about our property.

            After the course of a few weeks, I began to come across peculiar things missing in the house as well as things being moved. Like chairs would be on top of tables, my sheets were found on the floor when no one was home and it seemed like all of the silverware in the kitchen began to disappear. More weeks go by and my children and I started to hear things like voices. Not just any voices either, they were distorted and sometimes it sounded like someone was yelling. Both Beth and Derek said they would randomly see someone wearing a black hooded cloak standing at the end of the hallway staring at them with dark black eyes but when they blinked it would disappear. All of those occurrences were bearable until one day something so terrifying happened that I took my children and ran.

Once I put the kids to bed and picked up around the house, I finally lay down for bed before midnight. I slept easy until a disturbance woke me up around 3:30 in the morning. What woke me up were my sheets slowly tugging at the foot of my bed. I called out for my children, thinking one of them was pulling the sheets in need for my attention but all I got in a response was a low growl. My heart jumped into my throat, I had no idea who or what was at the end of my bed. As slow as I possibly could to prevent myself from making any noise, I began to crawl to the foot of the bed and looked over the edge and onto the ground. All I saw was darkness until I saw piercing red eyes. The next thing I knew I was forced onto my back with the cloaked woman pinning me down as she screamed in my face. As I struggled to break free, I noticed there was a large horn growing on the side of her head. Frantically, I broke one arm free from the woman and grabbed onto the horn pulling roughly in different directions until I broke it off. Immediately after it broke, the woman screamed and released my other arm, which allowed me to run away and grab my children and get into the car without looking back.

I called the police once I got a safe distance from the house to report the situation and even mentioned that things have been missing in my house. After they searched the house and found no one there but what was weird was when the they told me that for the past few years they have had calls from the same house about things going missing, possible burglary and a woman in a cloak with a horn. That scared me even more.

My children and I moved and we never went back to the house. I moved because I knew it wasn't a burglary. That woman was not human, she was a spirit that haunted the area. 

Haunted House by Shane Gorski (2008).

Author's Note: I used the story called The Horned Woman from the unit Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs (1892). The story was about a woman who lived alone and, one at a time, witches came into her house. 12 witches came into the door and they all had horns but they ranged from the first witch that walked in had one horn and the 12th witch that walked in had 12 horns. The woman let the witches in because she thought someone in the village was calling for them and they just got mixed up with the house. The witches casted a spell on the woman to do their bidding and ordered her to make them cake. The woman went to well to fetch water and the well spirit broke the spell and helped the woman get the witches out of her house and helped keep them out. When I read the story, it made me thing of a home invasion but I wrote it about an invasion of a spirit because witches make me think of supernatural things. I used the idea of the spirit having a horn just to have more relatable to the original story. 

Reading Diary B: Celtic Fairy Tales

The second unit of the Celtic Fairy Tales was great! I really liked the tone of the stories int this unit because even though some have a dark undertones to them, there is reasoning behind the actions and the actions seem more humane rather than other units in the past. For example, the story of Beth Gellert is about a Prince who had many dogs but he had a favorite named Gellert. One day, the Prince called his dogs to go hunting and all showed up except for Gellert. After a few times of calling his favorite dog, the Prince gave up and went hunting with the other dogs anyway. When he returned, he found his dog with blood in his fangs and all in on his coat. In fear of the worst, the Prince ran to his child’s room to find blood everywhere and there was no sign of his son. Thinking that Gellert killed the Princes son, he stabbed the dog in the side with a loud yell. That yell woke up the son that was under the cradle next to a dead wolf. The Prince then came to the realization that Gellert was trying to protect the baby from the wolf when the Prince was calling all the dogs to go hunting. Saddened, the Prince buried the dog outside the castle walls and to this day the area is now names Beth Gellert or the Grave of Gellert. There was logical reasoning for the Prince’s behavior, even though it was a bit rash to just assume in an instant without checking everywhere for his son. But after he killed the dog, he showed it respect and buried it beside the castle.

Italian Greyhound by Christina (2007).

Reading Diary A: Celtic Fairy Tales

The unit I chose to read this week was the Celtic Fairy Tales. I have always been interested and wanted to learn more about the Celtic way of life and I thought what a better way of understanding than reading stories that have revolved around the community for centuries. The story I really liked the most in the first half of the unit was The Horned Women. I really like the story because it seems like this was a tale that was passed on by generations through a family and maybe there is one family whose ancestors have handed down the mantel that one of the witches dropped. The story was about a woman who lived alone were visited by twelve witches over the course of a night and each had horns on their head (it ranged from the first witch having one and the last witch having twelve). The witches put a spell on the woman of the house and made her make cake for them. But when she went to fetch water from the well, the spirit of the well began to talk to her and helped her, telling the mistress of the house a spell that would get the witches away. Once she got the witches out with the spell, they came back to the house trying to go into the house but the well spirit wouldn’t let them in and then made them leave. When one of the witches flew away, a mantel fell and that is what is passed down for five hundred years.

Witches' Sabbath by Francisco Goya (1797-1798).

Essay: Alice in Wonderland

I chose the Alice and Wonderland unit for this week because I wanted to refresh my knowledge on this fantastic classic! When I a freshman in high school, I remember that was my first time actually reading the story for myself. It was so weird and random but their symbolism was what really drew me in. For about a month I analyzed the story for my own benefit just to determine why Lewis Carol wrote a story with such a ‘farfetched’ theme and storyline for the time. I remember reading that he wrote the story for his children or grandchildren. I heard another version of a story I found was interesting because in the story everything is the same except Alice is older and took some type of drug so she began to hallucinate. The cheesier cat is actually her conscious and tells her to kill everyone in wonderland. When she wakes up, she realizes she actually killed real people. I also remember one of my friends saying that he did a bunch of psychedelics while writing his book, but that is more than likely untrue. Having all this knowledge of the story of Alice and Wonderland caused me to be even more interested in because there were so many weird things associated it that caught my interest.

            The story itself is a fantastic classic that I believe everyone should read at some point in his or her life. It is a story that both children and adults would love because the story seems to make no sense for our world but for Wonderlands rules, it made all the sense in the world. It lets all people, no matter how old, extend one’s creative mind and think of things outside the box of our rules in our world.  I am very glad this unit had this story and I hope people who had never read it before were able to take the opportunity to do so this week since it is such a great novel!

Alice in Wonderland by Jessie Willcox Smith (1923)