Storylab Week 12: Myth Crash Course

For my story lab this week I chose to watch the three Mythology Crash Course Videos. Below, I have written. my thoughts on each video. 

What is Myth? Crash Course World Mythology #1
   The biggest takeaway is myths are stories. Not necessarily false stories, but stories that have significance and survive for a long time. Myths usually deal with the creation of the world, and folktales/fairytales are lumped into them now. I wish this video was suggested/required at the beginning of the course because it would help clear up a lot of confusion are certain subject matters within this course. He then covers the myth of Persophone and how it explains seasons, and science has sort of built on this and derived theories from it. 

Theories of Myth: Crash Course World Mythology #12 
   He covered the definition of mythology and how myths are studied. Plato started the rumor myths are lies or made-up. A whole lot of history about how we have derived religious myths. Anthropology comes along in the 20th century, and studied how myths are a direct expression of its subject-matter and people. A lot of other -ology fields turned to mythology to build on their theories. 
Myths hold a lot of structure in culture. 

The Hero's Journey and the Monomyth: Crash Course World Mythology #25
   He jumped into stories of heroes and their journeys (monomyths). Campbell was expectantly sexist. "We are all heroes struggling to find our way through our adventures." Campbell was a little insane. He walked through the general three-part monomyth structure. 

Caption: An iconic hero with a classic journey. Obtained from giphy.com 

Reading B Celtic Fairy Tales

I finished up Celtic Fairy Tales tonight. Overall, I enjoyed these stories. I am of Irish descent, so these stories really struck a chord with me. One of the stories in this unit that really stuck out to me was Brewery of Eggshells. A woman had twins who lacked in growth. She followed some old man's advice and threw them into the lake. Turns out they were goblins and were reclaimed by the goblins in the lake. Another one that stuck out to me was Andrew Coffey. Andrew was a quiet man and traveling with his horse. The two got lost and came across a cabin. While at the cabin he could he someone calling his name, and he found a man who had been lost for many years. Overall, I liked how these stories were told and they were easier to follow. I liked the strangeness of these stories. They kept me more interested. 

 

Caption: Celtic Symbol obtained from Pinterest

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

Reading Notes Part A

This week I decided to read about Celtic Fairy Tales. As someone of strong Irish descent, these immediately jumped out at me. There were a couple that appealed to me a little bit more than others. The first one was The Field of Boliauns. This one captured the story of how Tom was tricked by a Leprechaun, which I thought was pretty funny. The other story that caught my attention was The Shepard of Myddvai. The story of a married couple with a certain condition. The man could not strike the woman more than three times, or she would leave him. He broke this rule and she left him and immediately left him. Overall, I liked all the stories in the unit, but they were slightly hard to follow. 

 

Caption: The Luck of the Irish giphy.com

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