Week 7, Storytelling: Mama Bob White's Song

My story starts when mama, Missus Bob White, left me and my brothers under the care of Mr. Br'er Rabbit while she went and washed her dress. Poor mama just cried and cried to us every night, but we can't answer her anymore. You see, Br'er Rabbit, who was supposed to be watchin' us, decided that he was gonna take us home and give us to his ol' lady to cook up for supper. She had already put the grease in the pan and had the fire stoked and ready, but when she broke open my egg, she realized I wasn't an "egg" anymore--I was already a bob white, and was gettin' ready to hatch. Well, Missus Rabbit, being a mama herself, she didn't have the heart to kill me and my brothers. (Between you an' me, I think we just wasn't big enough to get a good bite of meat out of.) Anyway, after she figured she couldn't cook us, she decided to put us in the chicken pin with their other chickens until Mr. Rabbit got back. Me and my brothers didn't speak "chicken" so we didn't know what was going on or where our mama was. When Mr. Rabbit got back, Missus Rabbit told him what had happened with us and oooohh, he was as mad as a wet hen! He sure thought he was gonna get a good meal out of us eggs. Mr. Rabbit told the Missus that he couldn't take us back to our mama 'cause he done told her we had ran away and didn't know where we had run off to. 

After talking for awhile, Mr. and Missus Rabbit decided they was gonna let us go, but told us that we couldn't go back to our mama. They said we had to go in to the big city and live so that she wouldn't know what had happened to us. We was young, just hatched in fact, so we didn't know no better, so we did what we was told. Me and my brothers marched in to Atlanta all by ourselves and met a bunch of pigeons. They were a weird bunch, but they took us in and taught us how to get somethin' to eat and how to stay warm and how to just get by. We growed up with those pigeons as our family and every now and then one of us would think about mama and how lonely she probably was. After a couple of years, when we was old enough to start thinkin' for ourselves, we decided we was gonna go back to that forest and find our mama. It wasn't easy to find her, but we met up with Br'er Fox, who said he knew Br'er Rabbit and how nasty he could be, and he helped us find our mama. Mama still cries every night, but now it's with joy that we are finally home.

Bobwhite Egg. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Author's Note: This story is based off of the story "Br'er Rabbit and the Partridge Nest" from the Br'er Rabbit II Unit. I had a really hard time finding something to write about this week, but I finally looked over the readings again and the end of this story started me thinking about if Miss Bob White's eggs had not actually been eaten, which is what is assumed in the story, at least by me. I decided to write this like I was telling the story to someone at home. Being from the south myself, sometimes I will lapse back into aint's and gone's with a lot of contractions and dropping the "g"s off of words, so I thought it would be fun to tell this in the style of talking my grandma does when she tells stories.

Bibliography: Story source: Uncle Remus and Br'er Rabbit by Joel Chandler Harris, with illustrations (1906).

Week 7, Extra Reading Diary: Grimm (Crane) (Second Half)

Grimm (Crane) 2nd Half

This half was really fun to read!

The Six Swans
This story is about a King that get's lost in the woods. A witch helps him get out of the woods, but only if he promises to marry her daughter. The King does, but he is scare for his children's life so he hides his six boys and girl in the woods. He visits them often and his wife starts wondering what is going on, she finds out about the boys and turns them into swans. She doesn't know about the daughter, so she is left human. The girl is found by another King and is married to him. She can't talk for six years while making shirts for her brothers to turn them back into humans. She is set to be burned at the stake on the very day that she is finally allowed to speak so that she can finally defend herself against her husbands mother.

Snow White
This version of Snow White is similar to the Disney movie, but there are some differences. In this version, the Queen tries and succeeds to "kill" Snow White 3 different times before she gets to the apple. By this point you kind of stop feeling bad for Snow White. You would think she would have learned her lesson by now! Snow White is also awoken when the prince is having her coffin moved and the piece of apple is knocked out of her mouth and she wakes up. I will give Disney props for making that part more romantic :)

Illustration from Sneewittchen, Scholz' Künstler-Bilderbücher, Mainz 1905.

By Franz Jüttner. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Week 7, Reading Diary B: Br'er Rabbit II

Br'er Rabbit II

Brer Rabbit and Partridge Nest
This is a story about a Whipperwill and Bob White birds and how sad their songs are. Miss Bob White left her eggs with Brer Rabbit and he took them to his house to eat. When Miss Bob White got back from washing her dress Rabbit said that her eggs had got up and walked away, so every night she sings good night to her lost children.

Female Northern Bobwhite. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The Fate of Mr. Jack Sparrow
Unfortunately, this is not a story about Johnny Depp :) This is a story start with Mr. Sparrow that overheard Brer Rabbit talking about how he was going to pull a good one over on Brer Fox. Mr. Sparrow decided he was going to run and go tell on Rabbit, so Rabbit ran ahead of him and told Fox that Sparrow was the one that was going to try and pull something on Fox. After Mr. Sparrow showed up, Fox told him that he couldn't hear what he was saying and to get closer. Mr. Sparrow ended up in Fox's mouth.

Week 7, Reading Diary A: Br'er Rabbit II

This week I am reading Br'er Rabbit II. The first half was a little ... weird. 

Brer Rabbit Finds the Moon in the Mill Pond
In this story, Brer Rabbit tricks his friends into thinking the moon is stuck in a pond because of it's reflection. He tells them that they have to "rescue" the moon so that it can be put back in the sky and so they all dive in on the moon, which is just a reflection.

How Mr. Lion Lost his Wool
This story is about how the Lion ended up with just hair on his head and the end of his tail. Brer Rabbit is watching man get ready to cook some hogs and sees how they put coals in a barrel full of water and then dip the hogs in so that they can get the hair off of them. Brer Lion walks up along with a couple of other animals and Rabbit asks if they want to take a warm bath with him in the barrel. No one takes him up on his offer except the Lion. After Lion got in, all of his hair came off except for the tip of his tail that had went through the bung-hole in the barrel and his head that was above water.

The Cowardly Lion. Source: Wikimedia Commons.