Week 14 Reading Notes: Russian Folktales, Part A

For this Monday's reading, I decided to go with the Russian Folktales. This was my original choice for my first week 13-14 reading, that I changed to Dante's Inferno. I thoroughly enjoyed these readings and I got a lot of good storytelling thoughts from them! For instance, most of these stories get right to the point of the story itself whether that be being nice to the poor or doing what you're supposed to be doing in the first place (integrity).
In contrast to the obvious morals, some stories seem like they will end with a moral of the story but then they end with the person getting what they want in the first place. In one story, a rich man is supposed to give some money to a poor man, then he fakes his death to get out of his debt, then helps the poor man scare off some bandits, gets some money in the process, and never pays the poor man what he originally owed him. It's actually really funny to read some of these stories and see how they unfold. There was one story that kind of seemed like an origin story that was about three siblings. In the end of the story, the two sisters abandon their brother and become a stream, while the brother chases after them and ends up becoming a delta. It was actually kind of sad that this happened because the three of them had gone through a lot together and in the end, the sisters abandoned their brother.

Combining all these different ideas, I think that I will take the straightforward and to the point elements from the Russian folktales unit. For example, I will open with the main characters and the main antagonist and clearly lay out the issue at hand. Then I will advance the story while leading to a seemingly clear ending. Then, I will not write that ending, but write something absurd lol.


Bibliography: Russian Folktales by W.R.S. Ralston (1887).
Image: A rich man and a poor man