Reading Notes - Celtic Tales (Reading B)

I am honestly loving these Celtic Tales. They are so random and so entertaining, a lot of things are sort of familiar from pop-culture, like the fairies and the goblins, but also there are a lot of things that I'm learning that you can only get from going straight to the source. 

For example, I was watching or reading something, and the legendary hero was a guy named Andrew Coffey. I didn't understand why, but the point was that he could see into the ghost world. Reading the original story kind of helped me make sense of the reference, even though he's less heroic and more human in the story. Every reaction he has to Patrick Rooney's ghost(?) is a reaction I could totally see myself having. 

I am sticking with my original point from Reading A: these stories are meant to connect the past (mythical or not) to the present, and preserve history and culture in a much more direct way than I'm used to seeing in the Native American or African myths. They use people's reall names, first and last: "My grandfather, Andrew Coffey," or "Prince Llewelyn, son of King John" or "King O' Toole." I know for a fact there are some O'Tooles in Ireland or Scotland who at least claim connection to these old stories. I would. 

My favorite stories from this selection was "King O'Toole and his Goose" and the "Tale of Ivan." I liked the colloquial way that the story of King O'Toole was told. The narration included things like "I'm telling you...", which I rarely see in stories. I think that's an interesting and underappreciated way to tell a story: literally telling it to the reader, no grandiose language just a casual storyteller. I've never considered telling a story that way, but perhaps now I might. Another thing that I liked about the story of King O'Toole was the fact the Saint Kevin was the supernatural element of the story. Somehow, I forget that you can look at religious figures in a lot of ways: culture heroes, actual messengers of god, or just supernatural beings. And Saint Kevin was a really interesting way to remind me of that. 

I also liked the Tale of Ivan because it had foreshadowing every step of the way but there was still a twist. That story was awesome, relaxing and entertaining. I also really liked the "Brewery of Eggshells" because it gave me insight into where the myth of "Changelings" come from. 

"The Legend of St. Stephen" by Martino di Bartolomeo
via Wikimedia Commons

I know we're doing a StoryLab this week, but I might try out this new storytelling method for my story next week. Maybe it'd be relaxing to just calmly tell a story.