Reading Notes: Brothers Grimm - Hunt (Part B)

"Bearskin" was an interesting story on two fronts. First, I thought it was interesting that the first part of the story echoed the struggle that a lot of veterans face in reintegrating into civilian life. It was noteworthy that this struggle is in folklore as early as the Brothers Grimm, if not earlier. Second, by the end the story really felt a bit like Beauty and the Beast. "Hans the Hedgehog" felt the same way, because both involved the man showing his "true self" after the woman had already agreed to wed him.

A Hedgehog. (Pixabay)

Speaking of "Hans the Hedgehog", that story was weird. Honestly it didn't seem to have much of a moral message and the plot was so absurd that the whole thing felt a bit like a fever dream. The bit where he stabbed the princess from the first kingdom was probably the weirdest part for me.

Bibliography. Household Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, edited by Margaret Hunt. Web Link.

Reading Notes: Brothers Grimm - Hunt (Part A)

The stories in this section are a bit longer than most of the short stories we read for this class, and they seem to have a rhythmic structure in common. In all three stories in Part A, actions are repeated over the course of the story and ultimately there is resolution. The final story, "Allerleirauh", is the most concrete example of this.

Thumbling on a man's hat. (Wikimedia Commons)

The story of "Thumbling" is interesting because it relies on the premise that though he's tiny, he has a voice that's as loud as any other. Of course his small size is a sign of some magical origin in itself, but his loud voice leads one to further question the nature of that little dude.

Bibliography. Household Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, edited by Margaret Hunt. Web Link.

Tech Tip: Word Count

For this week's Tech Tip, I added a word counter to Chrome (the extension can be found here). I think I knew that this tool existed, but I hadn't decided to try it out until I saw it as an optional Tech Tip. I can see it being incredibly useful, as previously I would prewrite my documents in Google Drive because of the included word counter. Now, I can write my blog posts and comments directly on the page!

I tend to do alright with word count, and whether I go over or under depends a lot on how much I have to say. My stories naturally tend to be longer when they have more elaborate plots or need deeper exposition. Usually, when I'm getting close to the minimum word count, I ask myself how I plan to wrap up the story. Sometimes I'm not even close to a stopping point though!

There are 160 words in this blog post. :^)