Graphic Myths

I took a bit of a break from my trip to put in some time with my students, but as is the way with life, one portion seeped over into the other (i.e. my vacationing in the ancient world influences my teaching). So, for my lit class's final project, they will be turning a myth into a graphic novel. Typically my student's turn one of the short stories we read for the class into graphic novel or a play, but this semester the spirit of the ancient gods have moved me. Here are a few of they myths they can choose from:

Vasilisa the Beautiful, a Baba Yaga story
Vasilisa is a cinderella story. A young woman abused by her stepmother and two stepsisters, Vasilisa turns to the doll her dying mother gave her for comfort. Of course, this is no ordinary doll. Give it a little food and water and it wakes up to offer advice and help. While the evils steps order Vasilissa to perform menial and difficult tasks, it is the doll who actually completes them. Horribly frustrated by Vasilisa's obstinate refusal to become worn down and ugly, the steps send her off into the woods to borrow fire from Baba Yaga, a witch who enjoys eating people, in the hopes of killing off Vasilisa. In the way of fairy tales, this plan does  not work and Vasilisa escapes, with much help from her highly useful dolly.  Baba Yaga sends her off with fire - in a skull, how awesome is that - and Vasilisa returns home; at which point, the skull sets the stepmother and stepsisters on fire. Love it. Vasilisa does some seriously artful weaving and ends up married to the King...of course.

The stories of Baba Yaga are Russian fairy tales that while are not quite as old as the other stories I've been reading, do share many commonalities with the more ancient myths. The most 'mythological' as opposed to 'fairy tale based' character in this story is Baba Yaga. She is drenched in mythology as the central character in many tales designed to reveal something about morality or nature; also, she is often paired with three riders, as in this story, who represent the Day, the Sun, and the Night, suggesting godlike abilities. She is both good and evil: providing those who cross her path with the wisdom they need to carry out their mission, but also always a hair's breadth from just killing and eating them if they mess up in any way. Just like a god.

If you want to read the story, SurLaLune has an annotated version.



The Terrible Head (winner of best name)
The Terrible Head is the fairy tale story of the myth of Perseus, a Greek hero. In the fairy tale, a King sends his daughter and her newborn son out to sea trapped in a box because a prophecy forewarned he would die by the hands of his daughter's son. They are, of course, rescued and a nice man takes them in. But then the King of their new country decides he wants to marry the woman and to do so, he has to get rid of her son. He tricks the son into going on a quest to retrieve The Terrible Head. "Then they told him that somewhere, a long way off, there dwelt three dreadful sisters, monstrous ogrish women, with golden wings and claws of brass, and with serpents growing on their heads instead of hair. Now these women were so awful to look on that whoever saw them was turned at once into stone. And two of them could not be put to death, but the youngest, whose face was very beautiful, could be killed, and it was her head that the boy had promised to bring. You may imagine it was no easy adventure."

And of course, he will need three objects to complete his quest: "first, a Cap of Darkness, which would make him invisible when he wore it; next, a Sword of Sharpness, which would cleave iron at one blow; and last, the Shoes of Swiftness, with which he might fly in the air." And to find these three objects, he must "go to the Three Gray Sisters, who live far off in the north, and are so very cold that they have only one eye and one tooth among the three." After a successful mission, he rescues a princess chained to a rock right before she can become a sea monsters dinner.

Anyone familiar with the Perseus story - or the film Clash of the Titans or Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson - will recognize the myth behind the fairy tale. The elements remain eerily the same, except the names. In Greek mythology, all of these characters have names - Perseus, Andromeda, the Gorgons, Polydectes, Danae, et al. - but in the fairy tale, names are unimportant and instead we have the King, the Princess, the son, and so on. I am not going to hazard a guess as to the reasoning for this.

You can read the full fairy tale here or the myth of Perseus here.

I also gave students the option of adapting the myth of Sisyphus, the story of Narcissus and Echo, Diamonds and Toads, or the Girl without Hands. With thousands and thousands of myths to choose from, I took the lazy man's way out and just picked the first handful I figured they wouldn't be too familiar with. :)

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Echoes of Man is my month-long sojourn into antiquity. I plan on entering the ancient world and basking in its glory for the entire month of November.

During this time, I will be reading and reviewing literature of the time and posting about related topics. If you have anything you would like to add - a review, an informative post, etc. - let me know. I would love to have you join in!
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Echoes of Man Image from ~darkmatter257 at deviant art
Sketch by Tanja Wooten
Perseus and the Gorgons  in Wonder Book for Girls and Boys