Week 5 Story: The Cat and the Bat

Once upon a time, there was a cat named Gerald. Gerald was your ordinary cat. He would wake up, eat, meow and sleep in that order. Gerald never fazed from that schedule. Gerald had never deviated from the schedule. Gerald was the most normal and cuddly cat a family could have. Then one day, something weird happened to Gerald. Gerald broke his schedule and began to cause chaos in the household.
Gerald's owner couldn't believe his eyes. His cat that was the perfect housecat had become a menace to the house. Gerald began to tear things up and not eat. Gerald would not stop meowing and his sleep schedule was thrown out of whack as well. Gerald's owner decided to make a decision, "Gerald, you need to leaving this household til you nehave and get your schedule back on track!". Gerald was saddened but understood. Gerald gathered his toys and some tuna and left. He walked a good 5 miles and found a tree. The tree was perfect for a nap as it had a lot of shade and no one was by it, or so Gerald thought.
While Gerald was about to doze off, something swooped down at him. It was a bat!!! Gerald was startled by the bat and yelled at the bat, "Who are you?!". The bat didn't say anything at first but eventually replied, "I am the one and only Sam!". Gerald began to roll around and laugh. Gerald was expecting a scary or something like Dracula but Sam was the last name he was expecting. "What? I am going to cause you so much pain your bag of toys!!" screamed the bat and went for the bag and stopped in his tracks. "What? You see a ghost or something?", said Gerald. Sam was shaking and told Gerald he would do whatever Gerald wanted.
Sam had found a bat-like toy and was concerned that he would become a toy as well. Sam told Gerald he would do anything he wanted and there was only one thing that Gerald wanted and that was normalcy in his life at home. "That is it? I surprised you didn't ask for food, another cat, or a luxurious cat world?"questioned Sam. Gerald immediately clapped back with a series of reasons and one being Sam must really want to be a toy.
Sam followed the request as quick as he could. With the snap of Sam's claws, Gerald was sent back home. Gerald felt something was different which was good. The feeling he had when he left was one he didn't want to feel again. Gerald made a knocking sound on the door and his owner opened the door and was in awe of Gerald being there and looking good as new. Gerald would live a happy life as his world was back together and wasn't going to fall apart ever again.

This is Gerald the Cat https://images.app.goo.gl/33STVzznwfX3MQY96

Author's Note: I got my idea from the story of The Ghost of who was Afraid of being Bagged. The story have similarities in the fact that both involve a character leaving home and being brought back due to another character based on a scare tactic. I also got the title idea from Cat in the Hat but just switched to Bat to allow for more flexibility with characters in the story and for a play on words effect.

Bibliography: Folk-Tales of Bengal by the Rev. Lal Behari Day, http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/07/bengal-ghost-who-was-afraid-of-being.html

Reading Notes: The Ghost who was Afraid of Being Bagged

I read through the story and thought it was put together extremely well. When I was choosing what to read for this week, the title of this story really caught my eye. I read it last to make sure the thoughts and details that I had from it were fresh in my mind and not drained out of my head after reading multiple other stories. The story is an amazing tale of just a simple barber that, in a surprising turn, gains a whole lot of money and scares away ghosts which is funny to think about. People are supposed to be afraid of ghosts and not want to scare them all by themselves. The barber used an interesting tactic to deal with the ghost and later the uncle of said ghost.
The intimidation that the barber used was the fact that he would put the ghost in a bag. This seems like a weak intimidation attempt a ghost, supposedly, can faze and move through objects but a bag would be able to stop the ghosts. The item in that bag that was truly menacing was the looking-glass. This glass gave the ghosts a look at themselves and the meer fact of seeing their reflection caused them to be scared and do what the barber wanted them to do. The barber did a great job in getting a lot of money and supplies for himself and for his wife who he had left because he did not have the means to support his wife and family.
The story is a really interesting tale that had many twists and turns that weren't expected from me when I read through the story. I never would have thought a barber would be able to take on ghosts and be so successful. The promise made by the husband was to come back only if he was rich which you would not think would be possible with a barber's pay but the fact he was able to return to his wife and be happy with the money and the support that he can now give his entire family.

A more childish version of the story https://images.app.goo.gl/5fLpKKgVbMtJCcvZ7

Bibliography: Folk-Tales of Bengal by the Rev. Lal Behari Day http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/07/bengal-ghost-who-was-afraid-of-being.html

Reading Notes: The Origin of Opium

I tried a new strategy this week when picking out the story I was going to read. I usually read the first paragraph or two of the stories then decide based on of that. This week I have decided to read the title of each story only and based off the title choose the story and stick with that story. The story I chose was The Origin of Opium. This choice was based on the fact of the impact that Opium has had across the world and especially in Asia and Middle East. I am a big history junkie and seeing this gave me a flashback to high school history and got me really excited to read and do some exploring in the story.
Now to the actual story, the story was sort of a surprise from the impression I got from the title. The story was more of an actual origin, in a folklore sense, of opium compared to what my mind created the idea that it would actually be about opium only. The story was a fantastic story that I really enjoyed with a lot of details and cool characters. One of the best parts of the story was the talking animals. I am a huge animal guy and the thought of animals talking made very content with what was going on throughout the story. The mouse was an interesting animal to choose to use as the animal that was going to speak with Rishi. The mouse then transforms into a cat and then a dog. This was surprising as that doesn't usually happen in stories as characters usually stay one type of animal in most stories that I have read, but this story was a nice adjustment and fresh story to read. The final transformation to the ape was surprising as I would have thought two transformations were plenty, but the third one took me by surprise. The scary part that left me on edge was the ending of the story that was left wide open and it seems that the ape may die or something may happen to the ape that isn't good.
Bibliography: Folk-Tales of Bengal by the Rev. Lal Behari Day http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/07/bengal-origin-of-opium.html

This is what I think the Ape looks likehttps://images.app.goo.gl/5htn89gXcQNRQzNm8