Reading Notes: American Indian Fairy Tales, Part A

Iagoo, the Story-Teller

In this introduction, the storyteller and the children are huddled up in an igloo, and the North Wind howls wildly outside. One of the little girl worries that the Wind will get inside and hurt them, but the storyteller assures her it can't. I'd like to do something with that premise: the protagonist and a small group gathered inside some building or panic room, trying to defend against some antagonist or creature that's trying to get in. And ultimately failing, because that's when the fun stuff starts, plot-wise.


Shin-ge-bis Fools the North Wind

There's a great image in this story about Indian Summer—

Then, as the summer days grew shorter in the North, Sha-won-dasee would climb to the top of a hill, fill his great pipe, and sit there—dreaming and smoking. Hour after hour he sat and smoked, and the smoke, rising in the form of a vapor, filled the air with a soft haze until the hills and lakes seemed like the hills and lakes of dreamland. Not a breath of wind, not a cloud in the sky; a great peace and stillness over all. Nowhere else in the world was there anything so wonderful. It was Indian Summer.

 —and it makes me want to do a story about summer itself. When you're younger, summer is this time of infinite afternoons and magic, but as you get older, it slowly glazes over into nostalgia instead. I'd like to do a story related to that somehow: two friends at the close of one of their last summers, realizing it isn't how it should be and it'll never be that way again. Things change, Beast Boy.


Shin-ge-bis Fools the North Wind (Part II)

In this story, the part where the protagonist invited his enemy to join him at the fire was brief and pretty insincere, but it still caught my interest. I'm intrigued by the idea of the protagonist and her arch-rival being forced to survive something together or just attend the same event or dinner or something; the rivalry and antagonism would still be there, of course, because that's the fun part—but it'd be interesting to see how they simultaneously have to work together or at least play nice in a passive-egressive way. We'll see.


Little Boy and Girl in the Clouds

Before the storyteller begins explaining about the mountains, he sits staring into the fire, and for a long time, none of the kids feel comfortable interrupting him. When one girl finally does ask a question, the old man snaps out of his trance, "as if his mind had been away on a long journey into the past." This makes me think of doing some kind of scrying story, maybe to either unlock somebody from the past or help rescue them somehow, with all the dangers inherent in scrying (plus some kind of mind monsters or something) to spice things up.


Little Boy and Girl in the Clouds (Part II)

In this story, when the parents are trying to find their missing boy and girl, they turn to all of the animals for help. It's Coyote who eventually helps them find the kids, and his attitude was pretty amusing. He actually reminded me a lot of the BBC Sherlock Holmes: overly self-assured, delivering sweeping insults to everyone else without event thinking about it, brusque and a fan of challenges. The part that really cemented this for me was when the parents ask how their children could've possibly gotten up on the rock, and we get this gem from Coyote: "'That is not the question,' said Coyote severely, unwilling to admit there was anything he did not know. 'That is not the question at all. Anybody could ask that. The only question worth asking is: how are we to get them down again?'"

It makes me want to do a story with the protagonist turning to a character like this for help, much to the protagonist's annoyance. I'm thinking some kind of high school setting; I initially saw the meet-up in a cafeteria, but we'll see what ends up happening.


The Child of the Evening Star

In this story, the protagonist can see the character of people's hearts just by looking at them, and I think a similar gimmick could make for a fun short story. I'm thinking about changing it to a character who can tell if/when others are lying, and is used as a human lie detector and advisor for a court or king or businessman or something. But the jury's still out on exactly what I would do or how it would all play out.


The Child of the Evening Star (Part II)

The dynamic between the protagonist and Osseo at the end of this story was interesting, but more than that, I love the idea that Osseo is a descendant of the Evening Star. I think a lot of things could be done with a character like that, from powers to burnout to the not-quite-human otherness of him, and I'd be interested to see how he interacts with the human world.


The Child of the Evening Star (Part III)

When Osseo was offered the chance to rejoin his father, the King of the Evening Star, and come into his own full power again, it kind of reminded me of the Disney movie Hercules (the best Disney movie, for the record). Along those lines, I might do a story about a protagonist who's desperate to get back to his or her glorified homeland and birthright, but can't—not only because of a curse, but maybe also the consequences of doing so or some personal demons that can't quite be battered down. Not sure yet.


The Child of the Evening Star (Part IV)

This time around, I liked the description of Osseo and the protagonist's son: "a charming boy with the dark, dreamy eyes of his mother and the strength and courage of Osseo." He seems like he'd be a kid full of contradictions, harsh sometimes and vulnerable at others, brash in some ways but curiously reserved, almost shy, in others. I'd like to do a character study on someone like that at some point, though I'm not sure yet what kind of plot would be best to highlight all those contradictions. I'll think about it.




Bibliography: American Indian Fairy Tales by W.T. Larned. Source: Mythology and Folklore UN-Textbook.

Image Credit: "Hubble's Panoramic View of a Turbulent Star-Making Region" by
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Source: Flickr.