Joe's Myths

I wanted to learn  more about one of the heroes in the reading, Yamato Takeru . I learned that he has been compared to the legend of King Arthur in many ways. I then learned that King Arthur may be based on a half-forgotten Celtic deity , which I obviously wanted to know more about. From there, I learned that the Celtics believed in multiple gods, or that they practiced polytheism . A statue of King Arthur.

I used the website befunky.com to make my collage. It also houses a collection of images to use, which I searched for drums and found these.

I have added this story to my portfolio. I really hate taking baths. Surely there has to be an easier way to clean ourselves than to make me walk all the way out to this remote little bay. Then again, who am I to question the traditions that have been so for as long as anyone can remember. I'm sure my ancestor, Amaterasu, knew of better ways to bathe, but I don't get to talk to them, so here we go again. Now that I've cleaned up, this wasn't such a bad idea. I needed a little me time, so I'm going to enjoy this as much as I can. I'm going to sit on this rock for a while and just enjoy the sun. Hey, who's that in the water over there? That looks like a mermaid! I've never met a mermaid before, I'm going to go introduce myself. Oh shoot, I scared her. Wait! No! Come back! I just wanted to say hi. Darn it, maybe I can find where she swam off to. There's got to be a cave entrance around here somewhere. Darn, I couldn't find anything. I have...

The reading starts with several stories describing the labors of Yamato. It starts with his hunting down a siren. I like sirens because even though everyone knows that they just want to kill and eat you, no one is able to resist them. It's like irony built right into a character. So Yamato just woke a dragon by accidentally stepping on it, thinking it was a rock, and it wanders off and he continues on his journey. Neither of them cared about the other. One thing I like about how this story was written is that, whenever it is describing something specific, it changes from generic narration to poem format. It helps break up the monotony of the wall of text the story would otherwise be. He waited for 100 years on the island before returning with the apple. This man is patient. This boar, whom everyone is scared of and whose weakness is known, shouldn't be killed while he's asleep. Because that's boring. Yamato on his way to get the Golden Apple of Immortal Youth. Lin...

 It's nice to get a start at the very beginning. Now I don't have to worry about any backstory that could come in to play later. I also like this idea of having a god devoted to a single thing. It makes it easier to keep track of them and more or less defines their personality, which is great for storytelling. Stories could always use some irony, and that comes in double with the death of Izanami. She gets stripped of her immortality and cast down to Earth, then she dies in child birth while giving birth to two opposing sons. I like the phrase "abode of eternal gloom," and think I might use it somehow. The rest of this is going to be great, I'm assuming, because it's just going to be a bunch of overpowered siblings duking it out. So this serpent wants this girl to marry and offers to slay a beast to earn her from her parents. As soon as they agree, he decides the best course of action is to turn the girl into a comb. Because who can fight a monster when your h...