Myth-Folklore Topics Brainstorm

My first topic idea is the Stories from the Faerie Queen by Mary Macleod (1916).  I think it’d be really interesting to explore because there’s so much that can be done with the tales considering that they include princes, knights, ladies, and castles.  I think it’d be really fun to play up a story like that considering at one point, almost everyone was interested in royalty and medieval times.  I’d love to explore the day-to-day life of princes/princesses since that is not explored as often as their big adventures and exploring the day-to-day life of royalty opens up the possibility for lots of creativity.  The first story of the unit is about Sir Guyon and it starts “after the capture of the wicked enchantress” so I think that I could provide a lot of background to add to the story since it’s not provided by the unit.  However, other online sources have stories included before the Britomart unit that I could explore to provide more stories that the UnTextbook wouldn’t necessarily have.  This would be neat because even for people in the class who’ve read this unit, the stories before the Britomart unit would probably be new to them.  Anyways, I’d love to talk about how Prince Arthur and Sir Guyon were perhaps not originally friends and how it came to be that they’d work together… I think there’s a lot of potential right there.   Another possible backstory could be that Elizabeth I was reading the poem The Faerie Queen and commenting throughout my storybook because apparently she read the poem version (The Faerie Queen) and highly enjoyed it so it’d be neat if I incorporated her as a narrator somehow. 

Another topic idea is the Brothers Grimm (by Lucy and Walter Crane, 1886).  For one, some of the original stories are already known so it’d be fun to completely twist them and make them new again.  Also, they are a bit longer so it’d provide plenty of opportunities to change the story without worry of it being too short.  Also, there are children’s stories as well as more grown-up stories that would provide a nice variety so more than just children are appealed to.  I’d love to make the stories much more modern but also make sure to convey the original message.  The Robber-Bridegroom for example is definitely not a children’s tale, but I think I could modernize it by making it so that a father wants to set his daughter up with a “nice boy,” but she gets constant warnings from her friends and ends up exposing him for who he really is.  I’d love to emphasize the morals of all of these stories, and I think I could do so in a more relatable, modern way. 

Another unit I’d love to explore is English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs (1890).  I think the unit is appealing because like the Brothers Grimm stories, many of them are already known and loved stories.  Similar to the Brothers Grimm unit, I’d really enjoy taking stories that are known so well and changing them in a new and exciting way.  For example, the story of the three little pigs doesn’t have to be a story about pigs at all but could be a story about three different young women who all wanted a guy’s attention but instead of the wolf blowing down their houses it could be that their true sides were known and only one woman was genuinely kind?? I’m not exactly sure, but I’d love to make the story completely different.  I’ve looked up re-tellings of the story and the ones I saw still used pigs but some incorporated Little Red Riding Hood so I think my story could be so different and pretty neat.   I also really liked the story of the Fairy Ointment and could perhaps use that story as well to show that things are not always as they seem. 

My final topic idea for now is Robin Hood found in The English and Scottish Popular Ballads as collected by Francis James Child.  I appreciate how the Robin Hood unit is more of a long continuous story than different selected, non-overlapping tales.  Like the other topics, I’d love to completely re-do this one and do a more modern telling.  I’d love to focus on the relationship between Little John and Robin Hood and focus on their strong friendship, and maybe rather than Robin Hood disguising himself as a butcher or a monk, I’d love to disguise him as an accountant or a businessman which is more modern and are also occupations that would deal with money since Robin Hood could use that resource to help the poor.  Another fun story I could incorporate would be Maid Marian since I really enjoy love stories.  That way, I could appeal to those who love romance but also by nature, Robin Hood is quite adventurous.  It could even be cool if the narrator was an FBI agent looking for Robin Hood and how he gradually saw that his deeds were for good and was changed by his actions… There’s lots of re-tellings of Robin Hood through cartoons, books, and movies, and many of them focus on different things.  Although re-telling this story runs the risk of sounding like all the others, I think I could put a fun, unique spin on it.


I'm adding this on later so this isn't really a part of this blogpost but for week 3, I started Cupid's unit and really like it so far and maybe want to do it for my storybook.  I like how it's similar to Beauty and the Beast and would maybe set up the story as a dating show and have a girl go on dates with different guys but eventually fall for one of them.  The original story was written by Apuleius and (titled The Golden Ass) and translated by Tony Cline.  Although this wasn't originally one of my ideas, since starting to read it for my reading diary, I'm really interested in making this a part of my storybook in a love story format.

Robin Hood was important in popular culture, including in comics.

Source:  Wikipedia