Week 14 Reading Notes: Ashliman, Part A

I read from the Ashliman section of the Brothers Grimm unit for this Tuesday. I chose it because it looked like it had a lot of good short standalone stories in it. I was not disappointed at all! Just like the reading unit that I did for Monday, this unit got right to the meat and potatoes of the story. Reading one continuous story is great, but I like being able to read a lot of short stories because it gives more a lot more writing ideas to work with.

I did notice that there were some parallels between some of the stories, such as "The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids" and "Little Red Cap." In both stories the wolf eats the main characters but gets caught and cut open and has his stomach replaced with stones and then eventually dies because of this. Some of the other stories didn't make much sense to me but they were still interesting regardless. One of these stories was Herr Korbes. It starts out with a rooster and a hen going on a journey to Herr Korbes house by taking a wagon drawn by mice. On the way they fill up their carriage with numerous other animals and objects and when Herr Korbes come into contact with them, he gets all beat up. Then the story ends with, "Herr Korbes must have been a bad man." I'm not sure that I get this seeing as how the story never shows the perspective of Herr Korbes.






With all this in mind I think that I can take a few elements away from these stories to use in my own storytelling. I like the way that the Wolf is portrayed in these stories so I will probably write him into my own story. Also, he kind of gets the crappy end of the deal when he helps out Old Sultan so I might incorporate some of that story and have the Wolf end up benefitting in the end. I could possibly combine the Old Sultan story with the Seven Kids story and go in that direction. We shall see!

Bibliography: The Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales translated by D.L. Ashliman (1998-2013).

Image: Rooster, Hen, and Four Mice