Story Lab Week 14: Storybook Research
Godfather Death (Wikimedia)
Story Lab Week 14: Storybook Research
New Story for Retelling: Brothers Grimm: Death's Messengers
I needed a story to base the final chapter of my storybook on and so I decided to do Storybook Research to find a source for retelling. I wanted this last chapter to reveal the narrator, who is also the final trickster Reynard has to face, Death. I searched the UN-Textbook and the first story I found actually fit perfectly. I found the Brothers Grimm: “Death’s Messengers” Story. Within the first part death is injured and a young man helps him so death promises to send messengers before he comes for him himself. I think this part of the Brothers Grimm story will be a flashback within a dream in the Storybook Project. Reynard will take the place of the man and the dream will recall a past arrangement between Tricksters. As the story continues the young man grows old and is surprised to see death, who then claims that he sent many messengers in the form of old age. I think I will have their arrangement be instead between two of the original tricksters and so rather than sending messengers in the form of old age death will send them in the form of tricksters: rabbit and Tanuki. I think it will have to be that the deal was so ancient they both forgot about it, but the memory of it came to death in the form of the plan. It could possibly come to him through the Tree of Knowledge in Eden, Death’s favorite tree. In the end of the Brothers Grimm Story the old man capitulates and goes with death. I think Reynard deserves a better fate than that. I think he should trick death into thinking the memory was just a dream and believing he promised to let the Fox live forever for saving him instead. He could even use the Tanuki power to shape shift into a memory to change what Death believes as reality. I think this is a much more fitting end for Reynard, The greatest Trickster of them all.
I needed a story to base the final chapter of my storybook on and so I decided to do Storybook Research to find a source for retelling. I wanted this last chapter to reveal the narrator, who is also the final trickster Reynard has to face, Death. I searched the UN-Textbook and the first story I found actually fit perfectly. I found the Brothers Grimm: “Death’s Messengers” Story. Within the first part death is injured and a young man helps him so death promises to send messengers before he comes for him himself. I think this part of the Brothers Grimm story will be a flashback within a dream in the Storybook Project. Reynard will take the place of the man and the dream will recall a past arrangement between Tricksters. As the story continues the young man grows old and is surprised to see death, who then claims that he sent many messengers in the form of old age. I think I will have their arrangement be instead between two of the original tricksters and so rather than sending messengers in the form of old age death will send them in the form of tricksters: rabbit and Tanuki. I think it will have to be that the deal was so ancient they both forgot about it, but the memory of it came to death in the form of the plan. It could possibly come to him through the Tree of Knowledge in Eden, Death’s favorite tree. In the end of the Brothers Grimm Story the old man capitulates and goes with death. I think Reynard deserves a better fate than that. I think he should trick death into thinking the memory was just a dream and believing he promised to let the Fox live forever for saving him instead. He could even use the Tanuki power to shape shift into a memory to change what Death believes as reality. I think this is a much more fitting end for Reynard, The greatest Trickster of them all.
Bibliography:
The Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales translated by D. L. Ashliman
The Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales translated by D. L. Ashliman
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