2 Creatures

YET ANOTHER ALMOST-STORY

I once happened across a Native American folktale, said to be of Algonquin origin, that tells of how a hunter espied a group of beautiful girls descend from the sky in a basket and dance, and how he used a trick to win one of them for his wife.  I was immediately struck by the resemblance to the old Korean tale of 'The Fairy Maid and the Woodsman'/ 선녀와 나뭇군, which tells of a humble peasant who espies a group of beautiful maidens descend from the sky and bathe in a pond, and how he used a low trick to win one of them for his wife (I referred to this legend in the July 10, 2010 post).  There is more to both stories (the Korean one has a sad ending while the Algonquin one is more optimistic), but it's got me wondering about the close similarity, and if there are also stories from other cultures that tell of similar doings. Perhaps it's a metaphor for man's desire for unity and wholeness, and the girl from the sky symbolizes the anima?  Is the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros another iteration of this theme, with the gender roles switched?

THE MEGATHERIUM AND THE REPENOMAMUS,

A TALE OF SEPARATION AND LONGING

Related post:  2 Angels,  An Almost-Story,  Another Almost-Story

An Almost-Story

MAYBE THIS IS HOW SOME MYTHS GOT THEIR START, LONG AGO

Akira, is that you?

Sometimes I'll come across a cloud formation that's tantalizingly suggestive -- clouds whose shapes seem just on the verge of being recognizable, like a half-remembered memory. Maybe they look as if I should recognize them from a tale I read or heard long ago, if only I could remember which one -- or maybe the shapes suggest a story being acted out in the sky, except it's not quite clear enough for me to articulate the plot. Call it The Secret Language of Clouds.

Sometimes it's as though I were vaguely remembering something of my former life; not specific memories as such, but more like a feeling, of what it was like in a different life, in a different world.

In Korean folklore each person's soul is a star that's come down from the sky to dwell for a time on earth. When they die the soul returns to its true home in the heavens.

When I die, perhaps I, too, will go back to dwell above the clouds again.