Myth-Folklore 2019

One bright, April day during recess at a suburban elementary school, the 4th grade bully Jake demanded that a group of three 3rd graders give him their backpacks and everything inside, yelling "If you don't, you are going to regret it for the rest of your life!" Jake felt extremely confident that the kids would give in to his demands as he was much larger than them (and most of the 5th grade class) and had a posse of pals right behind him who could step in should Jake start to lose the battle. As Jake stood his ground, waiting for the three little kids to surrender their belongings, the 3rd graders decided that enough was enough. They had seen Jake go through this same ordeal with countless other kids and it was time to put a stop to his antics. One of the three, Sam, stood up to Jake and declared "There's no way I'm going to give you my stuff! Let's fight this out like men!" Sam readied his backpack, prepared to swing it at Jake's head should ...

For this week's reading, I chose the stories of Robin Hood, as seen in The English and Scottish Popular Ballads by Francis James Child (1882-1898). Of these stories, my favorite was The Bishop of Hereford  as I love a story where a hypocrite gets their due. The Bishop of Hereford: In this tale, Robin Hood notices that the Bishop of Hereford is traveling his way, so he decides to play a trick on the greedy, immoral man. Robin and his men make it so that the bishop and his entourage must pass by them, at which point the bishop notices that Robin has killed a fat deer. The bishop accosts Robin and his men for killing one of the king's deer, especially when there are so few of them to eat it. He declares that he will take Robin before the king for punishment. Robin asks for mercy, to which the bishop replies that he will not grant Robin or his men any mercy, that they must go before the king for punishment for poaching a deer. Robin then summons the rest of his men so that the ...

For this week's reading, I chose Robin Hood from The English and Scottish Popular Ballads by Francis James Child (1882-1898). First of all, all of these stories surprised me as Robin Hood is not at all as he is commonly portrayed in movies. He is kind of a brat and a punk who goes around picking fights he can't win, calling his pales to come get him out of trouble. That being said, Robin Hood's character annoyed me and so my favorite story was The Pedlars because in this story Robin gets what he deserves. In The Pedlars, Robin Hood decides that he wants to search the packs of three peddlers traveling to Nottingham. Presumably, Robin wants to steal their goods. He orders them to drop their packs and shots arrows at them, which results in them dropping their packs and preparing to fight off Robin and his friends using their giant staffs. Robin asks the peddlers to wait so he and his men can get staffs with which to fight, to make things more fair (because it is totally f...