Portfolio Index Page

You can also read my Portfolio on my website.



The Becoming

Based on Ovid's story Deucalion and Pyrrha, this is a story about one of the rocks that didn't quite make the transition into a human.

(Deucalion & Pyrrha Repopulate the Earth. Source: Wikipedia Commons)

Fate's Hangover

This story was inspired by one line in the story of Famine in Ovid's Metamorphosis III. “Famine” is a myth about how Ceres decides to torment men with hunger for cutting down her oak tree. In the second paragraph of this story, it is said that "fate does not allow Famine and Ceres to meet." In the myth, Ceres contacts a mountain spirit to contact Famine for her since they are not allowed to be near each other.

(The Three Fates. Source: Wikipedia)

The Graveyard

This story was inspired by a proverb from the Plantation Proverbs story that is in the Br'er Rabbit I unit. I had a lot of fun writing this story.

(A Slave Cabin in Barbour County Near Eufaula. Source: Library of Congress)

Together Forever

This story was inspired by the story of Patussorssuaq, Who Killed His Uncle from the Eskimo Folk Tales unit. This story is a little "I boiled your bunny" but I had a blast writing it.

Saint Benedict Curing an Obsessed Etching after L. Carracci. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Sticks and Stones

This story was inspired by the story The First War from the Apache Tales Unit. This story turned into a voodoo journey before I knew it but, I believe, turned out pretty good.

Affaire de Bizoton 1864. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

This is my Portfolio Index for Mythology-Folklore, Spring 2015.

Week 10, Storytelling: Sticks and Bones

In a small metaphysical shop in the middle of the French Quarter, there is a woman standing outside her door. Her shop has been here for over forty years and is full of new things and of things older than she is. This is the first place visitors go on their witchery tours of New Orleans. She is known to her friends and customers as Miriam, but her true identity is much more...serious.

After the tour joins her, Miriam scuttles around her shop as the new group shifts about looking at things, picking them up, turning them over in their hands. She stops and talks to everyone that is there. Usually, people only buy one or two things, just to say they bought something at a ‘real Voodoo store in New ‘awlins’, but sometimes she had special visitors show up. Today, that person was in this group and she was a powerful one. The girl wasn’t aware of her full potential, but Miriam could see it right away. As the girl went from shelf to shelf, running her hands over some stones, she stopped in front of a set of bones. She stood there and cocked her head like she was trying to make sense of them. Miriam walked up behind her and stood for a minute and watched. Miriam stepped beside her and touched her arm.

“Those are bones for throwing,” she said softly.

“What is that?” the woman said as she turned her head slightly and looked at Miriam out of the corner of eye.

“It’s a way of telling the future, like tea leaf reading, tarot, or palm reading. What is your name, honey?” Miriam asked.

“Lucy,” she returned with a smile. There was something about this old lady she liked, she thought.

“Well, Lucy, you ought to pick out a pair and maybe I can show you how to work them.”

“Oh, no, I can’t,” she said as she flipped over the bag to look at the price. “Yeah, I can’t,” she sighed as she placed them back on the shelf. “I’ve overspent on this trip already. These aren’t that much, I know, but I just can’t.”

Miriam looked around and turned back to Lucy. “Can you come back later, by yourself?”

“Uh...yes, ma’am. Probably so, why?” Lucy asked timidly.

“Well, you just come back by around nine and we will talk then,” Miriam said as she gave her a little wink.

“Oh, I better get going! it looks like the tour is leaving me,” Lucy said as she started walking towards the door. “I will see you later!” she called behind her as she waved goodbye.

At nine o’clock, the bell over the door rang as Lucy walked in. She looked around at the shop she had visited earlier during the day. It had a whole different feel at night. Candles were lit and there was a thicker incense smell than before, too. She breathed deeply and closed her eyes. As she was exhaling, Miriam walked out from the back of the store.

“Hello, Lucy. I’m so glad you came back,” Miriam said as she walked up to Lucy and grabbed both of her hands.

“Me too,” Lucy said as Miriam gave her hands a squeeze.

“Well, let’s just cut right to the chase shall we. I don’t know if you know it or not, but you are one powerful little girl,” Miriam said as she walked towards the back of the store.

Lucy stopped in mid-step. “What are you talking about? This,” she gestured around the room referencing Voodoo in general. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“No, I’m not, and I don’t think we have time to ease you into this. Things are a little more...dire than I realized earlier today,” Miriam spat as she grabbed Lucy by the arm and started pulling her to the back room.

The room was small with a little table centered in front of the fireplace. There were small altars all around the room, each one designated for a different deity or ancestor. Miriam gestured at one of the seats.

“Sit down, please. We need to get started,” Miriam said as she sat down and grabbed a bag from underneath her chair. It was the bag that Lucy had been looking at earlier.

“Wow, well, this escalated quickly,” Lucy laughed a little to herself.

“Yes, well, like I said, we don’t have much time to waste. My time has grown…short,” Miriam said as she poured the bones out on the table.

“First off, my name is Miriam. I am a priestess of Voodoo, as you probably already know, but I have another purpose,” Miriam said and looked at Lucy. She wasn’t sure if the child was ready for what she was fixin’ to lay on her, but she didn’t have a choice. “What I really am is death, not like what you think of as death, but that is my role.”

Lucy sat back in her chair and stared at Miriam. This is a dream, she thought, a really bad freaked out dream. Did she get some bad weed from that guy last night or what? But the more she sat processing what Miriam just said, the more right it felt. Why it felt right, she wasn’t sure, but she trusted her gut and it had never steered her wrong before.

“OK,” Lucy said. She inhaled and exhaled loudly. “What does that mean?”

Miriam was taken aback at how well Lucy just took that little bit of information. Maybe she was more capable than she originally thought, which would make the transition much easier.

“Well, that means that every night, I sit down at this table and the outcome decides the fate of the souls on this earth. Have you heard the saying ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones’...? Well, in this case, it’s ‘Sticks and bones’ but the words will hurt you.”

Lucy and Miriam leaned in close over the table and began discussing what would come next. As Miriam grabbed the bones and threw them down on the table, the candlelight touched her smile.

Affaire de Bizoton 1864. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Author's Note: This story is inspired by the tale The First War that is included in the Apache Tales unit. When I read the first paragraph of the story, it mentioned how the Raven was in charge of divining whether people would live or die by throwing a stick and then the stone pestle I thought it would be an interesting and fun twist to the idea of the ‘stick and stone’ to write something that fit in with the saying "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." As I was typing this saying, trying to develop the story in my head, I thought about an old voodoo witch sitting at a table in a dark room throwing bones for divination, so that seemed to be the way this story ended up going. As I was writing the story, it took on a life of its own. Lucy wasn’t even a main character until I had gotten through about a quarter of the dialog. I then had to go back and work Lucy into the first couple of paragraphs to help tie everything together. The name of the main character is the name of a real Voodoo priestess.


Bibliography: Jicarilla Apache Texts edited by Pliny Earle Goddard (1911) New York: Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. VIII.

Week 9, Storytelling: Together Forever

Pat was a very handsome man who seemed to have it all. He lived in Manhattan with his beautiful and loving wife in a condo right next to Central Park with a vacation house in the Hamptons. He worked on Wall Street and they had all the money, cars, and houses that they could ever wish for. Life was perfect, or so it seemed to everyone else. Pat, however, was miserable. He had been with his wife since high school. He did love her, and she had stuck it out with him through college and all of the late nights at the office as he worked his way up the ladder. He loved her, he really did, but his uncle had just married a woman named Ruby who was half his age and she was really hot. I mean hot, hot. She was young and beautiful and he wanted her. He always got what he wanted, even though he had never wanted another woman before, and he was going to get what he wanted this time too.

Pat decided he would ask Ruby out for lunch in the guise that he was just wanting to get to know her better. Although he did want to know her better, he wanted much more than that. They were in a dark quiet restaurant in a booth in the back corner and had been drinking wine and talking for over an hour past the end of their lunch. Pat figured this was the best time to make his move. Ruby responded just the way he wanted. They ended up renting a hotel room in Brooklyn and spent the rest of the day doing things that I can’t say in this story. When it was time for them both to go home, Ruby turned to Pat and told him that this was going to be a one-time thing and for him not to tell his uncle and she wouldn’t tell his wife. She also told him that if he didn’t keep his end of the bargain, she would tell them both what had happened. Pat agreed but knew that this was not the end of it. He wanted her more than ever now and he intended to have her.

A week later, Pat called Ruby to meet him for lunch again. She refused and reminded him of her warning. He said he remembered but that he just wanted to talk to her. She hesitantly decided to meet him and he immediately started trying to talk her into going back to a hotel with him. She refused and warned him again as she got up and stormed out of the restaurant. Pat sat there and turned over what had just happened in his mind. The more he thought about it, the more angry he got. He refused to let her say no. She was going to be his one way or the other.

One evening a week later, Ruby was coming back from the gym. She opened the door to their apartment and sat her stuff down on the floor. There was something off, but she couldn’t tell what just yet. She yelled her husband's name as she walked into the kitchen and after he didn’t answer her, she went looking for him. When she walked into their bedroom, she screamed. Lying there on the bed was her husband and Pat’s wife, both naked, and they both had their throats slit. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing and couldn’t stop screaming. After she “calmed” down, she called 911 and waited for them on the sidewalk in front of their building. She called Pat next and told him what had happened. He came over immediately and they tried to comfort each other the best they could. After the detectives questioned them and the coroner removed the bodies, she had to go get a hotel room since her apartment was now a crime scene. After she checked in, she took something to help her sleep. After drinking a bottle of wine, she finally was able to relax and drifted off to sleep. She was woken up by her cell phone ringing at 3:00am. It was Pat, she started talking to him about what had happened again and he cut her off.

“I did it for us,” he said.

Ruby didn’t quite understand at first. And so she started talking again about the accident.

“I DID it for US,” he said again, this time with more emotion in his voice.

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Did Pat kill them, or have them killed, so they could be together? She sat there with sheer panic on her face.

“Ruby, I did this for us. Now we can be together,” Pat said in a sweeter voice.

“I didn’t want this though,” Ruby replied. She was in tears now and was in the beginning stages of a panic attack. She had to hang up and call the police she thought before this got out of hand.

“Ruby, don’t you dare think about calling the police. I will kill you if you do. I will kill you no matter what you do unless you agree to be with me.”

Ruby was stunned. Pat was crazy, he was really certifiable. She couldn’t believe this was happening.

“I take it from your silence that you need a little time to make a decision, but I know what it will be. I know you want to live. We will have to wait an amount of time so it doesn’t seem out of place that we are living together, but you will be mine,” Pat said very calmly.

Pat hung up and Ruby sat there staring at the phone. She didn’t want to die. She sat there and thought about suicide and actually calling the police, but at last, she picked up her phone and texted one word to Pat. “OK”

An arial view of Central Park by Central Park Conservancy. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Author’s Note: This story is based on Patussorssuaq, Who Killed His Uncle from the Eskimo Folk Tales Unit by Knud Rasmussen. This was one of the most coherent stories from this unit and I thought it would be the best one to try to re-write. This story is a simple one of jealousy and how doing something wrong can come back and bite you in the butt or as some put it Karma. I wanted to put a modern spin on the story, kind of like a Boil Your Bunny/Fatal Attraction feel but reversed but also not in the exact same way. In the original folk tale, Patussorssuaq got his comeuppance for coveting his uncle and his wife, he even ended up losing the stolen wife. We all know real life isn't always that cut and dried though and that sometimes bad people get away with bad things. I decided to change the ending to be a little more realistic into how this would really go down. Hopefully he will get what is coming to him in the afterlife. I intentionally left the ending open so that the reader would leave wondering what really happened to them in the end. I also decided to shorten his name to Pat since his real name is a mouthful.

Bibliography: Eskimo Folk Tales by Knud Rasmussen, 1921.

Week 6, Storytelling: The Grave-Yard

One night a gentleman named Leander was walking home from a bar. Between the bar and his house stood a very old cemetery, with big above-ground tombs much like the ones in New Orleans, and it was over a block wide. He usually didn’t mind the extra walking he had to do to go around it, but tonight, he had had a little too much to drink. “I really need to find a bar that’s more convenient,” he thought as he came upon the cemetery. Even though the gates were closed after sundown, they were never locked. Leander wasn’t a suspicious guy but there was a saying that his grandmother used to always tell him -- “Ghosts don’t bother honest people, but it’s still safer to go around the graveyard.”

Cemetery Photo by: Alexandria. Source: Pixabay.

Leander was an honest man he thought. He was raised by a good family, he was smart, had graduated from college, and was an honest, hard worker. Again, he wasn’t a suspicious person, but he still avoided going through the cemetery...period. Against his better judgement, this night he decided to go through the cemetery anyway. About half-way through, he started feeling like someone was watching him. He quickened his steps as he looked over his shoulders. He couldn’t see anyone, but it didn’t stop the feeling that someone was watching him.

About three-quarters of the way through the cemetery, he started hearing footsteps. They were faint, but he could hear them in the echo against the tombs. Every now and then he would hear a shuffle, a stone being kicked, the crunch of a leaf. The faster he walked, the faster the footsteps became. He was making his last turn before coming to the gate that would lead to his house. As he rounded the corner he saw a shadow retreat between the mausoleums. He was now positive that someone was following him. He was scared, but he stopped anyway.

"Who's there?" he said out loud as he turned around looking in every direction.

When he received no answer, he asked again, but louder. He was getting ready to start walking again when the shadow that he saw retreat now emerged into the pathway. The figure was still in the shadows of the tombs, but he could make out the height. It was a short figure, he thought, maybe a woman.

What would a woman be doing in a cemetery by herself, at night? He had no idea, but he was anxious to find out.

"What is your name?" he called out as she began walking out of the shadows.

"Nancy," she said softly.

As he walked forward to meet her, he noticed that she had a glow about her that would appear if he looked at her for too long, but that would disappear when he blinked. Even though she was now in front of him, he still felt like someone was watching him. As they finally met, she told him that she was there to protect him and that he was an honest person, but that some things in his past could be manipulated by the ghosts so that they could achieve their goals. He decided he knew enough to know what their goals were and wanted to get the hell out of there fast. He and Nancy walked to the gate and she told him he would be safe as soon as he was out. Leander thanked her and turned around to walk out. He looked back to ask if she was coming, but when he turned around, she was no longer there.

A Slave Cabin in Barbour County Near Eufaula. Source: Library of Congress.

Author's Note: This story is based on the proverb "Ha'nts don't bodder longer hones' folks, but you better go 'roun' de grave-yard" from the Plantation Proverbs story that is in the Brer Rabbit I unit. To me that translates to: “Ghosts won’t bother honest people. You might think you are an honest person, but just in case, you might want to avoid the graveyard.” I am from Georgia and so writing this story was really fun. I thought since it was rooted in southern culture that I would make it really personal so I decided to name some of the characters after family members. The main character's name is the name of my 6th great-grandfather who was a slave that bought his freedom during the late 1700's in South Carolina. The name of the woman he meets in the cemetery was his wife's name. I thought this would be a great proverb to tell a story about since it had such a spooky flavor to it and included one of my most favorite parts of the south, the graveyard. Southern people are also very superstitious, so the whole proverbs section sounded very familiar to me. In the south, we have little sayings about every kind of situation.

Bibliography: Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings by Joel Chandler Harris (1881).

Week 3, Storytelling: Fate's Hangover

(The Three Fates Tapestry. Source: Wikimedia Commons)

According to lore, Fate has never allowed Famine (the goddess of Starvation) and Ceres (the goddess of Agriculture) to meet. To allow Famine and Ceres in the same location at once would be certain doom. However, Fate had a different plan for this day.

One afternoon, Fate was drinking a glass of wine, going through her list of To-Do’s for the next day, when she started feeling ill. She had never been sick before. Goddesses didn’t get sick! But, right now, she felt as if she was going to be sick all over the Earth. She called her sisters, but they weren’t answering her calls. They had been ignoring her since last week. She “accidentally” cut someone’s life cord short before it was their time...it was a simple mistake! They could be so serious sometimes. It was just a human, no big deal, right?! After not being able to reach her sisters, she decided that she would just lie down for a minute until the room stopped spinning. Why was the room spinning...? Why was she feeling this way...? She had heard the humans talk about being drunk and the room spinning. She couldn’t get drunk, right? She then remembered who she had gotten the bottle of wine from last weekend, Loki. This was not going to end well!

Fate woke up the next day with a pounding headache. Her phone was ringing off the hook. She picked it up and saw that it was her boss calling. THE boss. Oh, sh*t, this is really not good. She was soooo going to kick Loki’s a$s for this! She got up, grabbed some Excedrin and picked the phone up again. She took a deep breath and called her boss back.

Yeah, this was NOT good. Leave it up to Famine and Ceres to pick the ONE night she was not paying attention to end up at the same club. They have both been pining for Hercules for CENTURIES and did NOT get along, AT all. According to the report, people started feeling so hungry but full at the same time and were so confused that they started eating themselves. It started in the club, but by the time she had woken up from her hangover, it had spread to the borders of town. How was she going to fix this?!?!

Fate pulled up to the club where Famine and Ceres were still duking it out inside. The catfight of the millennium! She really wished she could just sit there and watch this play out, but the boss wanted it stopped, now, so she had no other choice. She walked in and went straight over to Famine and Ceres. As she was trying to break them up, Famine caught her with a left hook. Man, that hurts...she was so going to make her pay for that! After grabbing them both by the back of the hair, she dragged them both out of the club and slung them down in the parking lot. She ordered Famine to go to the southern hemisphere and Ceres to go to the northern one allowing them to switch hemispheres every other year so no one hemisphere had to deal with one goddess forever. That should fix things! She put up a border spell on the equator to keep them from ever possibly being in the same place at the same time again.

Now, where is Loki...

(Loki with a fishing net from 18th Century Icelandic Manuscript. Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Author's Note: This story was inspired by one line in the story of The Famine in Ovid's Metamorphosis III. “Famine” is a myth about how Ceres decides to torment men with hunger for cutting down her oak tree. In the second paragraph of this story, it is said that "fate does not allow Famine and Ceres to meet." In the myth, Ceres contacts a mountain spirit to contact Famine for her since they are not allowed to be near each other. I thought it would be a great story to tell from Fate’s perspective of falling down on the job and allowing them to accidentally meet. My first task was to figure out how to have Fate fall down on the job. I have, unfortunately in my younger years, failed to make it to work on time because of a hangover. So, to make this work, I thought I would make Fate basically a college girl that somehow gets hungover. My other main task was to figure out WHY the two gods weren’t allowed to meet. The obvious was that they provide subsistence and hunger at the same time, but I thought I would throw in a love triangle just to complete the college girl theme.

Bibliography: Ovid’s Metamorphoses, translated by Tony Kline (2000)

Week 2, Storytelling: The Becoming

(Deucalion & Pyrrha Repopulate the Earth. Photo Source: Wikipedia Commons)

Jupiter was flooding the Earth from above with rain. He had become so impatient at the time it was taking to flood the Earth that he called on his brother, Neptune, to help him flood the Earth with more water from below. Only two people made it out alive: Deucalion and his wife, Pyrrha. In the aftermath, they looked around and realized they were alone. They appealed to the goddess, Themis, to help them. She replied that they should throw the bones (rocks) of their mother (Earth) behind them. They began to do this and one by one, my kind was created from the bones of our mother. After landing, we would soften and morph into a human form, and after a few minutes, we were free to walk, talk, and live. I was euphoric when I was thrown. This was my first moment on Earth. As I began to morph, I felt my bones being created and hardening, I felt my skin stretching over my muscles. I felt my eyes forming underneath my eyelids. I was Becoming. I was slowly opening my eyes when everything stopped. At first I thought maybe this was what was supposed to happen before I took my final form, but I knew that this was not right. This was not normal. Something was wrong. What had gone wrong? What had I done wrong? This was as far in the process of becoming a human in the re-population of the Earth as I was allowed to go.

I have spent thousands of years trying to figure out why I was not allowed to Become. No one answers me, no one can hear me. My soul is stuck in this slowly deteriorating form. No one noticed me after the Becoming. Everyone moved forward as Deucalion and Pyrrha threw the rocks, moved forward, and threw more rocks. I was left alone for a long time before someone found me. A young woman who had been wandering through the woods, half lost, was the first one to find me. She walked up to me and looked me in my half opened eyes. I thank the goddess every day that I had gotten my eyes open this far before things went wrong. To be immortal and blind would be the final sick twist to my situation. She slowly reached out to me and rubbed her hand down my arm. I could feel her, but I could not respond. I was screaming, trying to move a millimeter, but nothing would happen. After slowly moving around me, she grabbed both my shoulders and said she was taking me home with her. I was so relieved to be moved. No matter what happened, at least I would not have to stand out here in the cold, dark, nothingness by myself.

After leaving me for some time, the young woman returned with men. They all looked me over, trying to figure out where my base was. I wanted to tell them that I was not a statue, that I was supposed to be a human. I was supposed to be like them. I was supposed to Become. After prying my feet from the ground, they carried me gently to her palace. The young woman would stop and stare at me sometimes, like she knew there was something different about this statue, but she was always going somewhere else, never staying long enough to follow her hunch. The young woman grew into an old woman, who had young women of her own. I stayed on the palace grounds for a very long time. I saw countless wars, famine, empires rise and fall. At some point, I just became a part of history. Over the next millennia I have been moved from museum to museum, from storage to storage, from person to person. I have lost limb and head, but I still remain.

(Unknown Statue. Photo Source: Wikipedia Commons)

Authors Note: The story Deucalion and Pyrrha is about how the god Jupiter decides to flood the Earth with the help of his brother Neptune. Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha survive the flood by landing in their boat on the top of Mount Parnassus and become good pagans who worshipped the gods and goddesses and made offerings unto them. After appeasing the goddess Themis, she decided to allow them to repopulate the earth. To do this they were to pry rocks up from the ground and then throw the rocks behind them. When they would do this the rocks would soften and morph into a human like form and then would become new women and men. I first thought this myth would be a good one to adapt into a story about one of the rocks who was to become a man or a woman that didn't quite make it all the way to their human form. I thought about what would happen to them if they were stuck half-way between “becoming” a human. The flow of the sentences in the first paragraph is supposed to be choppy, to show the urgency and to mimic how I thought becoming a person would happen, in short spurts.

Bibliography: Story source: Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Tony Kline (2000)