#8 - Rice Goddess, HONESTY

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hinder vs helper ----> hope 
H is for the emotion, feeling, HONESTY

The RICE GODDESS

Do I like the story? Maybe. She is rewarded by others she helped. What does this say? "Giving gets rewards, honor." I think we (males or females) give though our professions as helpers, teachers, workers, the silent hero/ine. Do all these stories need to be about males and from their point of view? NO! I think this one is saying keep your clothing on.

A Heavenly Being working, serving and saves her family and community while trapped by the greed of a young male. She offers all she knows and has to her situation, and still, he does not honor her. For egos and today the female not recognized and honor for her talents. This code is changing. I was not encouraged to my abilities as an artist and writer that was the male code.
 
Helplessly abandon on earth, this 'damsel in distress' depends on the young man for help, her deceiver. Using her strengths, she survives. Told all around the world in many different versions, unfortunately, from his point of view, I changed to her point of view.

-  he steals her clothing:
-  she helps him;
-  marries the young man, serving him;
-  he peeks into her magic pot:
-  spends years nurturing and serving him;
-  has many children;
-  offers her efforts to starving neighbors;
-  grows worn and tired from her labors.
-  learns her selfish, lusting husband deceived her;
-  takes her children and leaves.    I would!

Today, this heavenly being is honored in every kitchen of South East Asia as the RICE GODDESS, a satisfying ending for another female, woman helper. Giving is the feminine part of all us not to be damaged by foolish male desire. The woman is not just a server, maid, wife, owned, slave, stolen, bought, threatened, abandoned. The female offers balance has hope, desires, wishes, and gifts for us, not to be stolen and used.

Lecture: what the stealing of the clothing/wings means to the women of Java.

#7 - Hare in the Moon - GENEROUS

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grim vs guard --> give
G is for today's feeling, GENEROUS.

Hare in the Moon, or Rabbit

DO I like this story? --> Maybe? Hard to tell the gender of a rabbit. Both men and women help and save others, one of our greatest gifts. We do and is immediate,  something happens. Spontaneous, DOOM and BOOM, a tragedy than someone, maybe you, helping. Besides, we feel good when giving, sharing, and serving.

Rabbit saves her friends by giving (her sacrifice for all of us) as in this telling when Rabbit serves the great Japanese Sky God.

The rabbit is associated with the moon. She is not a night creature, maybe that the moon is associated with woman power and is symbolized as a healer or  MUSE.
 
The rabbit or the hare is a popular mystical creature in the stories of the Nordic and Celtic tribes. Rabbit is a serving creature and is sometimes a goddess with different names, Ostara, whose bird turns into a bunny that gave eggs to children, “estrus”, our Easter bunny, the giver of eggs in spring.



It is said, this is one a Buddhist teaching tales from the five-hundred lives he had before he was born as Buddha. So being this tale is at least 3000 years old and beyond because travelers carry their stories from place to place, we as modern people discount this stream of verbal tellings.



Bare Rabbit from the Uncle Remus stories I read in my childhood. Rabbit also tricks tiger in the Korean folklore. Rabbit represents the common folk and tiger the ruling class.

Rabbit is in the Chinese zodiac and in their moon. Pa’gue, the first Dragon, died and leaves his body to make China. In doing so his left eye floated into the sky and became the moon, giving herbs to the peoples. Rabbit, who lives in the moon, grinds the spices and herbs for medicines for the early people. Later the God of Farming changes Rabbit into a Goddess, who gives medicines to the peoples of China.

#2 - Innocent Red - BENEFICIAL

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brutal vs bait ---> brave.
B is for the feeling of BENEFICIAL!

Innocent Red - PDF of story

I like this story, better to meet the wolves when young and beat them than later and be eaten. Hopefully, that youth with the help of her wood ‘would’ cutter and her backpack of skills will not be eaten (molested, drugged) by the banished wolves who still offer evil to our world.

We all meet a variety of wolves with many offers along our paths to benefit their pleasures, not ours. BEWARE!

Known as Little Red Riding Hood, I have RE-IMAGED, MANIPULATED, EMBROIDERED, AND ENHANCED this cautionary tale.  Granny and Innocent Red ventured through wolves to survived. I’m that Innocent Red now in my old age sipping a cup of tea in a comfortable, loving, safe, and secure home as grandma. With my wood ‘would’ cutter and bag of tricks, my house is the end of my journey.

#6 - Spider Weaver FOURISH

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Fatal vs flend --> flee.
F is for today's feeling, FOURISH!

Spider Weaver

Do I like this story? maybe
I read this story, after several years of telling in the Japanese Gallery at the Asia Art Gallery in San Francisco, and the realization flashed. Spider maiden does not have a name. One saved even by the smallest efforts, is bound with a task. The spider's pay-back for life, weaving and while she serving again under another attack.

A small spider as helpless, a 'damsel in distress', saved by a farmer who a spider honors him (a male) with weaving, the powerful skills of a small spider, female, and nameless. The weaver’s story told to remind listeners of 'his' protection, and all the gifts 'he' received from 'she'. He, as the lead, is usual for the time and country. When telling in the Japanese Gallery, the boys liked the story; the girls turned their heads. Now, finally, I know why, the girl saved again by a 'male' in ‘shining armor’ and 'she' must serve him, nameless.

Gifts given from the maiden spider for her protection is what women do and did. Yesterday and today, the saved woman gives her whole life; she cleans her home, buys the foods, cooks the meal, washes the dishes and clothes, cares for plants, and takes care of the children, drives, and maybe socializes with friends or in a group, and helps her aging parents.

My choices, if lucky, were to marry and have children, become a nun, be a secretary, bookkeeper, court clerk, store clerk, a librarian, nurse, or teacher. I wanted to be an artist, so I became a teacher. My mother liked that, she only went to 8th grade and sent away to become a clerk in another family’s store far away from home. 

Thank goodness today, after many feminists protest, males heard the anguish cries and passed laws, and they have learned family tasks and become an equal partner. Women can now achieve in other fields besides being the caregiver, or a piece of property. Today women are doctors, nurses, news forecasters, scientists, politicians, lawyers, judges, CEOs, and run their own businesses and own companies.
 

#5 - Lady Enid - ESTEEM

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Endanger vs endure --> expel.

E is for today's emotion, ESTEEM.

Lady Enid’s narrative, Knight Geraint of King Author’s Court 

Do I like the Story? Maybe? "Lady Enide stands by her man," a power only a wise woman has. A female voice in the first person and speaking in the past tense not done verbally or written for classic tales. She travels on the quest, horrified, astonished, and marvels at her husband's compelling drive for esteem. The sword in hand, the spear, and lance to win, and using his wife as a decoy, The macho male of my early childhood and his car of shiny armor. I understand the burdens placed on this code of behaviors on young males and, thus, the young females.


Knight Geraint, a jealous lover,  an irresponsible husband, takes his wife, Lady Enid, on a long endangered, perilous quest to prove he is a grand warrior (her knight in shining armor) worthy of her admiration and esteem. I adapted and modifies for the narrative by Lady Enid, Daughter of Earl Ynywl, wife to Geraint of King Author’s Court!

This is an ancient tale, a classic, a Mabinogion Myth, early 11 century, or before with versions that cross between Wales and Brittany France. Maybe a bit of Germanic influence included. Stories traveled with the traders and the troubadours which rode on the trading routes.
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Because this is a long tale, my verbal telling done in scenes or events to remember the story, then only after charting the characters, motives, the plot telling the legend. Organizing into scenes is to ground into the events as stages and lets Enid tell the story.
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 ‘Geraint, Son of Erbin’ from the Welsh Mabinogion, the primitive Celtic Arthurian Myths translated by Lady Charlotte Guest (got to wonder about the name).

www.missgient.net, The Mabinogion, The Welsh Mythology, the books' the translation by Lady Charlotte Guest. The site includes more Classic European Myths and Legends.

**Another good site is Timeless Myths, Arthurian Legends, Erec and Enide, Tales of the Knights, created by Jimmy Joe, all rights, October 2006. One can understand the language is updated, and the story simplified, made readable. The oldest versions told in verse.

#4 - Ursula - DISTINGUISH

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Demand vs dispute --> determined.
D for emotional feeling, distinguish!

 Ursula, The Kitchen Princess

 I do like this story. YES! A girl princess stands up for what she wants. Ursula does accomplish what she desires beyond her father's demands and his misunderstanding of her gift. Much of what women faced when I was a child. 

My dad pushed me to do, to adventure so saved. I saw my friends struggle and comply with the codes and norms, which were steadfast in their families. Most young women got married after high school. I attended Colorado University, which gave me a varied life, although still fenced by male dominance.

URSULA was a princess who lives with her father, King Wilfred, and two older sisters. Their palace was in Eastern Europe sometime in the 14th century when there exist small kingdoms and salt wars to possess the preserver of foods. Ursula, a young feminine 'damsel in distress,' loved to cook and spent all her time in the kitchen. Her father was demanding, disagreeable, and disappointed to his youngest daughter, who preferred the kitchen and the servants. At this time in Europe, the male and the social lines make her a victim. Ursula will not detour her love and runs away from home. A matron, an owner of an INN, helps her improve cooking and serving. The damsel becomes distinguished for her cookery.

Ursula and the Salt of Life, YouTube telling -- is okay, worth viewing.

Story on Wattpad - just a sampling of the first and last parts, as on Bublish.

#3 - Little Prairie HEN!, CHOOSE!

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Caged vs cause --> capable.
C is for today's emotion, CHOOSE!

Little Prairie HEN!

I like this story. The fact a little hen made bread all by herself, she is a winner. The first folktale I heard as a child. My Grandma is my little prairie hen. I needed a female winner, a mother hen, warm and cozy.

We did have the prairie birds on the Alpine Meadows of Colorado, especially at Harzel Flats, we drove through to go fishin'. Grandma Bessie walked behind a coverwagon from Indiana to Limon, Colorado.

Now she lived in Colorado Springs close our home.
My brother and I  walked from our house on 18th Street across a long field to 26th Street to visit Grandma Bessie. We ventured through the disabled train terminal. Trains once traveled up Pike Peak to Cripple Creek to pick up gold then down the mountain to the Golden Cycle Mill, which was abandon and up on sandhill behind our house. We live by Fountain Creek that flowed below the gold mill. What fun we had exploring the creek and old mill!

By the time we got to grandma's house, she had baked fresh bread for us, and we had many stories to tell her. When we arrived, mean, cranky step-grandpa was in his rocking chair demanding, and Grandma served him. He saved her and her four children when her husband died when my mom was six. My Grandma had a garden, cherry, and apple trees, a pond full of fish, chickens, a goat, lots of cats, and six children. She made her bread in a wooden stove and had a water pump in her kitchen. She did all this herself.

When we have a cause, we might think too hard for us, some of us ask for help and are turned down by some. The prairie hen is not upset and does what she must in order to make life easier for her and her chicks. She has a friend to help Mrs. Mouse.

I figured if Grandma Bessie could do these in her world, her granddaughter can in my world. Now on with the compiling the versions, I realize the male voice, dominate in my youth.  I've rewritten and re-image and understand by these stories sang.

Read Bubble #1 and Bubble #3, read on wattpad.
The  PDF with the story of Prairie Hen will be posted later, all the correction and stories, a week for each would be better.