Storytelling for Week 12: Amelia and the Baby

Once upon a time there was a woman living alone at the bottom a large hill. She lived in the countryside and all of her neighbors lived at least a mile away. Her name was Amelia and she was an older woman. For her whole life she was always pretty secluded and kept to herself. She rarely had visitors and fairly ever left her house. However, she was content. Amelia lived a simple and ordinary life and she loved it. Her life was just how she always pictured it to be. She was ready to grow old in her cute little house alone.

Then, one morning as she was drinking her coffee she heard a very strange noise. It startled her so much that she almost dropped her coffee cup on the floor. She had never heard a noise so shrill. It sounded like a person or animal crying out. Amelia was very scared to go check on the noise because it was so unusual for her house. She was never disturbed. She tried to go on with her morning but the noise was so unbearable and sad that she decided she must go check to see what or who was so upset.

She walked out of her house, but she did not see anything. Luckily she was able to follow the cries in hopes that it would lead her to the source. As she followed the sound the cries grew louder and louder she knew she must be close. Then all of a sudden, she heard the noise above her, and as she looked up she saw a bassinet in a tree with a baby inside! She was so speechless she did not know how this baby got there, who it belonged to, or how she was going to get it down. All she knew was that she had to rescue this baby. 

First to calm it she sang…

HUSH-A-BYE, baby, on the tree top;

When the wind blows, the cradle will rock;

When the bough bends, the cradle will fall;

Down will come baby, bough, cradle, and all. 

She sang this over and over again until it calmed the child. Then she was able to climb the tree. With a lot of effort, she was able to get to the top of the tree and grab the bassinet. She then climbed safely down the tree. As soon as she got safely to the ground she picked up the child to hug her and make sure she was alright. She was a beautiful baby girl. She had no idea where the parents were and no idea how to start looking. She decided to take her in as her own for the time being.

Amelia’s quiet little life was now full of love and joy.

Author's Note: For this story I took a simple nursery rhyme and built a story around it. I gave it meaning and a background story. I always sang rock-a-bye baby but I never truly knew what it meant. 

Bibliography: My story was based off of the nursery rhyme, Hush-a-bye, baby. This story is part of the Nursery Rhymes unit. Story source: The Nursery Rhyme Book edited by Andrew Lang and illustrated by L. Leslie Brooke (1897).

Week 12 Reading Diary, Continued: Welsh Fairy Tales

As I continued into week 12 of my Mythology and Folklore class at the University of Oklahoma. I continued to read more from the British unit. As I did this, I decided to focus this blog on Welsh Fairy Tales. These Welsh Fairy-Tales and Other Stories were collected by Peter Emerson in Anglesea during the winter of 1891-1892.

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Three Short Tales of Fairies: Here I learned about three very unique fairies and their lives. Fairies have always been very interesting to me and I was very eager to learn more about their origin. By reading these tales I was able to hear three very different stories which allowed me to have a greater understanding of the fairies. My favorite of the three stories was The Craig-Y-Don Blacksmith. I found it to be a very intriguing read that kept my attention the whole time. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more about fairies.

Crows: I began reading this story with great caution. I really do not like birds at all. I especially dislike crows because I think they are very scary and they remind me of a scary movie. I just think they give off really bad vibes. As I imagined, this story was not happy at all. In fact, it was very sad and surrounded by death. However, it was written very well. I think that all of the detail really helped me sympathize with the crows. To my surprise I actually found the story quite interesting.

Week 12 Reading Diary: Nursery Rhymes

During our 12 week on this class we were told to read from the British reading units. I decided to focus on Nursery Rhymes. I found these interesting because it allowed me to revisit my childhood, but it also gave me a brand new perspective, as well as broadening my horizons. The collection of stories I read are from The Nursery Rhyme Book by Andrew Lang with illustrations by L Leslie Brooke.

Charms and Lullabies: there were a wide variety of lullabies in this section. Many that I had heard before and some that I had not. The one in particular that I would like to focus on is “Hush a bye Baby.” I had always heard it as “Rock a bye Baby.” However, in this version there were many more verses to the story. The one I am familiar with stopped after the first verse. This story went on for quite some time and I found it very interesting to hear the rest of the story. It was like finally figuring out the ending after such a long time.

Tales: once again some of these stories were familiar and others were not. I really enjoyed two songs in particular. They were, The Man in the Moon and There was a Crooked Man. Both I had heard once but they were a little different. I think they are both really fun short stories. They are great for children and go a great job of rhyming. I think tales are interesting to read.