Portfolio Guide

The Magical Plant

The Story of Noah and Joshua

The Fish and The Leopard

Herald's Bad Year

Portfolio: Harold's Bad Year

There lived a man long ago named Harold. He was a nice and gentle man who didn’t have much going his way. Harold's wife and children died in a car crash earlier in the year and he lost his job at the coal mines due to budget cuts. T0 state it plain and simple, it was a bad year for Harold, a very bad year. 

On the brink of depression, Harold had sat on his old couch in his lonely home for two whole days without moving. Late one night as Harold sat miserably on his couch, he heard a loud knock on his door. Startled, Harold jumped from his couch. He never received visitors, especially late at night. He walked to the door and looked through a peep hole to see who was at his house. He didn’t see anyone. He opened the door and still no one was there. Baffled, he shut the door and walked back to his couch. Just as he was about to fall back to his couch, there was a banging on the door again. Now a little irritated, Harold ran back to the door to find what he thought would be a mischievous child playing a mean prank. When he opened the door, there was no sign of anyone. 

“Hey! Down here!” yelled a voice.

Harold looked down on his porch to find a man standing on his porch no larger than four inches tall. He thought he was dreaming. “What? Who are you?” asked Harold.

“I’m your guardian leprechaun,” promised the mini human on his porch, "And I’m here to give you some luck after your not so lucky events this past year.”

“I don’t need your luck. This is not real. Please, leave me alone!” said Harold. 

“Harold, I’m here to help! What can I do for you? Maybe treat you to some fine food and drink? Buy you a new house? Perhaps a new family??” said the leprechaun. 

Harold was reluctant to trust this mischievous little guy, but decided to play along with his game. “How about you get me my job back at the mine?” said Harold.

“Deal! But there’s a catch: when you gather your coal, I get to grab as much as I can hold in one trip to cash it in for my own profit.”

“Sounds good to me!” laughed Harold. 

Sure enough, the next day the coal miners found a whole new cave of coal and all the miners got their jobs back. Harold ran to the mine to gather as much coal as possible. After almost 12 hours in the mine, he came up with hundreds of pounds of coal in his barrel. 

“Wow! Good job Harold. Now, as you promised me, let me take all the coal I can carry,” said the leprechaun. He put one piece after another in his pocket. Soon enough there was no more coal in his barrel.

“You fooled me!” shouted Harold.

“Sorry, it’s what I do,” said the leprechaun as he started to walk away. As he walked away his pants split and he lost all the coal. Harold pushed him out of the way and took it all back. He cashed it in for profit and lived freely and worked hard for the rest of his days.

The guardian leprochaun.

Author's Note:

In the original story, the Farmer of Liddesdale, the farmer has a bad year until a man comes to help his plow his farm. The worker fools the farmer and takes his corn. The thief ends of losing all of the corn when his barrel breaks and then he vanishes. I wanted to create a similar story, but with a couple of twists. As a Celtic story, I wanted to bring in a leprechaun and make it more interesting, too! I really felt bad for the farmer throughout the original story, so I wanted to make sure my farmer came out with a good victory by the time everything was over.

I liked the original story because it went from tragedy to triumph. I wanted to bring the same theme into my story and develop the characters a little more. I thought the leprechaun would add a simple, mischievous character that I could portray as the antagonist. This was, readers would want to take Herald’s side. I thought the title fit the story well; it was a bad year for Herald. Luckily, things work out for him in the end, but I wouldn’t want to have to go through the same things he did! 

Bibliography: 

Title: More Celtic Fairy Tales

Author: Joseph Jacobs 

Illustrations: John D. Batten 

Year: 1895

Story Telling for Week 6: The Fish and the Leopard.

In early centuries, animals lived peacefully together in giant forests across the world. Fish had legs that allowed them to walk on land and all animals had the ability to speak to one another. This story is based on a unique friendship between a leopard and a fish.

Fred the fish was best friends with Linnie the leopard. They spent all of their time together, every day. The two were inseparable. Both Fred and Linnie had wives and two children. The families loved each other and grew up together.

A walking fish.

Photo Cred: Louis Dietvorst

Linnie the leopard was a recognized hunter among the animals in the forest. He is known to have the ability to kill any predator that entered the forest. Other animals hired Linnie as a bounty killer to find and kill animals who had broken the laws of the forest. Linnie ended his career as a bounty hunter when he married his wife and decided to settle down and teach young animals fighting skills for self-protection.

Fred the fish on the other hand was a schoolteacher. Quite smart, Fred taught algebra to various fish and forest animals.  He was known for his intelligence and care for his students.

The two grew close as friends at an early age. Fred would always help Linnie out in school and Linnie would protect Fred from any bullies.

One day, Linnie asked Fred to help him with some finances. Because Linnie’s skill was finding and killing, he needed some help when it came to his finances for his family and creating a retirement plan. Fred agreed with an agreement that Linnie would teach his son how to defend himself at school and learn self-protection.

For one week, Linnie would take Fred’s son to learn how to fight, while Fred took care of figuring out and managing Linnie’s finances. When the week was over, Fred had told Linnie that he had figured out Linnie’s finances and a retirement plan that would assure him to have enough money to support his family for the remainder of his life.

Thrilled by Fred’s work, Linnie threw Fred a huge party and invited the entire forest to attend. The animals ate, drank and danced the night away in honor of Fred’s good friendship. The next morning, Linnie woke up to Albert, a ram who was a tax collector. Albert declared Linnie's bank account as bankrupt.

“How could this be?” asked Linnie, “Fred took care of all my finances just yesterday!”

Linnie looked for Fred, but he was nowhere to be found. He searched the entire forest and asked every animal, but no one had seen Fred. Then, one of Linnie’s neighbors told him that she had seen Fred take a suitcase of money from Linnie’s home during the party. Linnie was astonished and could not believe his best friend would do such a thing after all there years of friendship.

Angered, Linnie went to his old friend the lion, the king of the forest, to tell him the situation. The king sent his servants to search the entire forest and find Fred and bring him back to his palace. The servants found Fred on the outskirts of the forest trying to purchase a giant house tree worth millions of forest dollars. The servants quickly got ahold of him and the suitcase full of money and brought Fred to the king. When the king lion proved Fred was guilty of this evil crime, he swore to the forest that because of Fred’s betrayal to his best friend, that no fish would never be able to walk or breathe on land again and could only swim in the sea. To this day, fish remain in the water due to Fred’s betrayal of his best friend.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is based from the Nigerian folktale, The Fish and the Leopard's Wife. In this story, the fish and the leopard are best friends until the leopard discovers that the fish is having an affair with his wife. I thought the story was very original and unique so I wanted to take a spin that had similar guidelines. I was pretty surprised about the outcome when I read this original story, but it was so interesting that I enjoyed it. I wanted my story to be similar, but give more background information in to the lives and relationships of the character as well as think of a new way of betrayal. I really don't like stories where affairs occur, so I wanted the trial to be over something that people can relate to, but not as tragic.

I liked how the leopard and fish are friends in the original story, so I wanted to keep the same animals as friends, but give them some more personality. I wanted to bring their families more into the picture to give more of an emotional draw to each of the characters. This was a fun unit to read and I enjoyed getting to write a story based from these myths. I hope you enjoy the characters in this story and can see their personality. It was a fun story to write!

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Title: Folk Stories From Southern Nigeria
Author: Elphinstone Dayrel
Year: 1910

Portfolio: The Story of Noah and Joshua

Long, long ago there lived a man named Joshua. He was the younger brother of Noah-you know the man who build the ark! Joshua was an insecure man who was constantly teased for his size. He stood only about five feet tall and weighed no more than 130 lbs. He was small and envious of everyone else.

Noah loved his brother Joshua, but as the two grew older, life got in the way of their relationship. Noah had to move on when he married his wife and left his hometown to find work so he could support his new family. Joshua was left alone with his parents who cared little for him.

When Joshua grew of age to leave his home, he tried to find a job with some local shepherds, but they told him he was too inexperienced. He then tried to find a job with some carpenters, but he was too small to carry the heavy packs of wood and tools. Joshua could not find a job and ended up homeless. He ran away  to the forest to find refuge and lived in a cave, deep in the forest for nearly a hundred years.

Joshua lived off the land in the forest. He became friends with the animals and never saw any humans, ever. Joshua was happy this way, or at least as happy as he could be living with animals. He wasn’t picked on and a lot of the animals looked to him as their leader.

On one particular day, Joshua saw all the animals in his forest migrating north. Bewildered, he asked two mountain goats where all the animals were headed. “We are going to find safety from the flood! Come with us,” said the goats.

“What flood?!” said Joshua.

“THE flood!” said the goats, “The flood that will cover the whole earth! Please come with us so you can be safe.”

Joshua didn't believe this could be happening. The forest had seen very little rain in the past few years, but he realized if he didn't follow the animals, he would again be all alone in the forest. Not leaving the forest in so many years, he was terrified to follow the animals. After a few minutes of contemplating he decided he must follow the herd of animals if he wanted to find safety.

Joshua and the animals of the forest traveled for miles and miles until they finally made it to the giant ark. They sat in a giant line of animals from across the world while a man in the distance counted each animal entering the ark.

“Where are all the humans?” asked Joshua the other animals.

“No humans allowed!!!” said the deer. “Just a crazy man and his family with two of every animal.”

"What? No!" sighed Joshua.

Discouraged, Joshua stepped out of the line and started walking back toward the forest.

"We're sorry, Joshua! We didn't know," said the mountain goats who pleaded with Joshua to follow them.

With all hope lost, he felt someone grab his shoulder. When he turned around he was surprised to find his big brother ready to give him a giant hug.

"My brother! It has been WAY too long. Please follow me onto the ark for safety. Come eat and drink, we have so much to talk about!" Noah gleamed.

Joshua was humbled by his older brother's kinds and generosity. Noah welcomed his brother on the ark as if he was the guest of honor. For forty days on the ark, the brothers caught up on each other’s lives. When they found land, Noah welcomed Joshua to live with his family and work with him.

Joshua was forever thankful for his brother and they lived in peace for the rest of their lives, together.

Noah greets the animals entering his ark.

Photo Cred: LDS

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is based on Noah and the Ark. This was one of my favorite Bible stories while growing up. This is one of those stories that just leaves you thinking, "Wow! I can't believe that really happened!"Although Joshua is a fictional character, I thought it was a fun way to add background to Noah and show his love and faithfulness to his family. Joshua is somewhat of a nerd and gets picked on while his older brother Noah is strong and independent. I wanted to show Joshua's insecurities and give him some personality apart from Noah. By giving Noah a younger brother, I wanted to show the tender heart behind Noah. Imagine building a giant ark and bring criticized by all of your peers. It took extreme faith for Noah to do what he did. The original story of Noah and the Ark is found in Genesis, the first book of the Bible. I have read this story many times, but it was fun getting to go back and read over this story again. There is so much hope given in this story and God's heart is revealed through his jealousy and love for his people.

Bible stories are always fun to read, so I am glad I had the opportunity to reread this story. Noah is such an incredible person of the Old Testament. This story is well-known and I hope my version of his "made-up" brother will only add to the glory of this story! 

Bibliography:

The King James Bible

Genesis 5-6