[ text | un: trickster ]

[dothelokimotion]

What kind of stories did you grow up with?

What kind of myths and fairy tales were you told?

Comments

Text; @strange.magic

[suckstobestrange]

My family wasn't much for storytime. Had a friend's grandma that liked to tell stories about Raven though. Those were pretty good. My friend didn't care for them, but he was more a cowboy stories kinda kid.

[dothelokimotion]

Who would Raven be?

[suckstobestrange]

A figure from Native American myth. She always had lots of stories, but I liked the story of Raven stealing daylight the best.

[dothelokimotion]

How did she steal it?

[suckstobestrange]

The Chieftain who kept daylight had it locked in his home in a great study chest. Raven saw his daughter would fetch water from the river that flowed nearby and so shapeshifted into a mote of dust in her cup. She drank him without seeing, and gave birth shortly after to Raven in the guise of her child, who the Chieftain doted on as his favorite grandchild.

Raven knew that he would have to get them to open the chests and find daylight before he could steal it. So he would reach towards the treasures of the home and cry loudly. In a bid to console him, the Chieftain would offer his treasures one by one for the infant to play with only for each one to fail to capture his attention.

Needless to say both he and his daughter were relieved when they finally placed the golden orb of Daylight in the child's hands and this quieted him. Once he had it, Raven shifted back to himself though and flew quickly out the smoke hole in the roof, daylight in his claws. Once he was safely away, and had flown high enough, he flung the orb into the sky, giving the world light and warmth.

Some variations say that the smoke from the smoke hole are what gave ravens their black feathers, that they used to be white before that.

[dothelokimotion]

This is infinitely better than all the child thievery and murder I was told about.

[suckstobestrange]

I take it someone introduced you to the Grimm brothers.

[dothelokimotion]

Your babyfaced self, if you must know.

[suckstobestrange]

Of course it would be him.

There's more to myths than their stuff. But I suppose for our country you tend to get those as the most well-known ones.

[dothelokimotion]

I find it hard to believe that these served any kind of moral infrastructure for children.

[suckstobestrange]

Nah but they sure as hell were good to scare kids into behaving.

[dothelokimotion]

[ He flinches despite himself. ]

Indeed. It is easy to pave the way to obedience.

[suckstobestrange]

Until you get some stubborn little kids that don't scare easily.

[dothelokimotion]

Is that a bad thing?

[suckstobestrange]

Nope. But it sure drives everyone nuts.

[dothelokimotion]

How so? What do families do with their recalcitrant brats?

[suckstobestrange]

Those kids are the ones who when told to do something that doesn't make sense? Will question it to the ends of the earth. I've seen my share of harried mothers trying to satisfy the 'but why?' train and it never seems to succeed.

Depends. Some families try and do as well as they can- divert the energy that might go into troublemaking into hobbies or things like that, work with the kid's nature instead of against it. Others just try and double down on the insistence that they obey and make things worse.

[dothelokimotion]

Perhaps there is no such thing as decent parenting. That might be the real fairytale we are fed.

[suckstobestrange]

You won't hear me argue that one. People claim decent parents exist but I haven't seen any so I remain skeptical.

[dothelokimotion]

Oh? That's a little surprising.