The flooring in my parents’ house, the house I grew up in, was solid hardwood and the color of sand. As a child, I would occupy my time by sliding in thick socks from the kitchen, to the dining room and living room. All the while twirling and leaping, as if I was USA figure skating champion Nicole Bobek. This drove my mother insane. She worked from home so that she could raise my brother and me, but this also meant that a quiet work environment was out of the question. We (my brother and I) once started a mini rock band with the kitchen pots, we accidently painted on our bedroom walls, played ferocious games of hide and seek tag, and dug holes in the back garden deep enough that we could stand up to our waists in the muddy-mess. We were far from tyrants, but we were eight (myself) and six, and I’d like to use the word curious to describe us, my mother would probably not.

It was a rainy day and my brother and I were under strict orders not to make a mess around the house. My parents had been cleaning the entire weekend so that we would be ready for a home-showing the following Wednesday evening. My brother and I loved this house and we didn’t want to leave, so we had been sabotaging the cleaning all weekend long. It was now Wednesday and I was feeling like one of the children in “The Cat and the Hat”. I remember my mother was in the living-room, working from home on her computer and my father had just came home from work and was in the garage cleaning his bike.

Since both of the prison wardens seemed to be off duty, my brother and I began to play a game of hide-and-seek tag. I went first and hid under the stairs, in a small crawl space that was filled with old junk and spiders. When it was my brother turn to hide, I counted to one hundred then began to search. Since he was pretty young, it was usually easy to find my brothers hiding spots; behind a curtain, under the bed, in a closet, typical places. But this time I really was having trouble finding him, I had spent about twenty minutes searching all over the house (it was a big house) and had recovered no sign of him. Starting to become worried, I was calling out his name to tell him the game was over, and that was when I heard it.

A muffled sound, sort of like the croak of a frog or the whimpering of a dog…but it was coming from the roof! I walked in circles to pinpoint the exact location of the noise, and it seemed to be coming from our coat closet. By now my mother had heard the commotion and came upstairs to see what all the fuss was about. She opened the closet door and then froze, “what is it?” I asked peering from behind her legs. It was my brother, or part of him at least, dangling through a hole in the ceiling. Now I could hear the voice clearly “help me” he was whimpering and he kept kicking his legs back and forth as if he was trying to stay afloat in water. I was instructed to run downstairs and get my father and his ladder. But when my dad made it upstairs, he was sans ladder. There was no ladder and no step-stool high enough to reach my brother, we would have to go in through the attic, the genius hiding place that had gotten my brother into this mess in the first place.

My father climbed up into the attic but was unable to reach my brother. The wooden beams that supported most of the ceiling ended feet away from him and the only thing to support the weight would be the dry wall of the ceiling. After that my mother had called the firemen, but it was a small town and the firemen were out helping another family. “You’re our top priority Mam” the dispatcher had said but it looked like it would be a while until someone arrived to help. Luckily, my brother was not in pain, he was more scared of the dark attic then the fact that half his body was dangling in mid-air. Since my mother and I were lighter than my dad, we went up to the attic and sat on a sturdy beam, my mother told stories to comfort my brother and I told him about all the rats that probably lived up here. Finally my father and two firemen arrived and a ladder and saw were used to bring my brother down to solid ground. When the firemen left, my brother was examined completely by my mother and I was sent to my room. I didn’t get any desert with dinner that night but we did cancel the showing of the house, and fourteen years later the house is still a place I can call home.

This assignment had us re-tell a story about ‘how evil came into the world’ written by Leslie Silko, and retold by Thomas King in his text, The Truth About Stories. The original story has many magical elements to it and involves spiritual entities (witches). I re-told the story a couple times but I was having trouble with its characters and the lack of depth that was needed to prove the moral of the story. The first edition of the re-telling is very close to the original (I may have forgotten a couple elements but it is basically the same). In my second edition, I decided to completely warp the story and change many elements, the moral and theme of the story have stayed the same but the characters and events are different. I hope you enjoy it!

First re-telling of Leslie Silko’s “How Evil entered the World”:

The root of all evil was brought into this world not by a certain race or religion, but by the Witches of the world. It happened many years ago, so many that it is almost impossible to count. From across the lands and seas, Witches had gathered in a cave for an annual meeting. The meeting was supposed to be a contest of a sort, a contest over who could perform the most impressive yet scariest trick. Some of the witches turned themselves into bats and ravens, others brewed up potions and turned unwilling humans into frogs, even some witches cast spells to turn fire into ice and rocks into gold. Once the witches had performed they began to argue over which trick had been the scariest, but there was one witch left who had not preformed anything yet. This particular witch was no man or woman, and no one knew where the witch came from. The witch stood in the middle of the gathering and began to tell a story, her one and only trick. But this was a nasty story, a story of hate and mischief, of disease and death, a story that no one wanted to hear. But once the witch was done the other witches promptly agreed that she had won the scariest trick title. However, witches hated that they had heard such a terrible and gruesome story and begged the winning witch to take it all back. But this, my friends, was not possible. For once a story has left the lips of the storyteller, it will linger on earth for all eternity. So you must be very careful of the stories you tell.

Second Adaptation:

Before cities, before cars and planes, before religion and war, and before evil, the world was calm. The animals lived without fear of humans and the humans lived without fear of the animals, everything and everyone was harmonious. But one day, a little girl was born. She was a ferociously curious baby, always testing her boundaries, drawn to exploration by the temptations of everything in her life. The girl grew up listening to the village Elders stories of the world, everything seemed so magical and foreign to her and she believed every word. Her mother named the girl Tempt, short for Temptation, and she was constantly telling Tempt to be cautious and wary of the Elder’s stories of temptations around her.

Sometimes Tempt was rewarded for her curious nature. One afternoon, when she was old enough to explore on her own, Tempt came across a deer under a sycamore tree. The deer and Tempt began to talk and the deer told Tempt about a beautiful pond deep in the woods, “only a couple animals know of its location” said the deer, “the water sparkles like the sun, the trees at the edge of the pond dance and sing with happiness and the fish leap up 10 feet into the air”. Tempt’s imagination began to run wild and she was overcome with a need to see this dreamlike place, “oh please deer, take me to this place you speak of!” she begged. But the deer refused, saying it was a place only for the animals not humans and she walked off into the woods. What do you think happened next? Yes of course, Tempt followed the deer into the woods, making sure to stay out of slight by hiding behind trees and bushes. She walked for what seemed like days until finally she stumbled out into a clearing, the trees were dancing and singing just as the deer had described them and the pond was glittering and beckoning her to jump in. The day spent at the pond was one of Tempts happiest memories.

However one day, Tempt’s curiosity became the better of her. The sun was beginning to fall from the sky and (as usual) Tempt had completely lost track of time. She hurried along the customary path home but as the sun sank lower and lower, she began to realise that she wouldn’t make it back until after the last star had appeared in the sky. Tempt came to a fork in the road and stopped. The right path would lead her to be home well after dark, but the left path (she had been told) was a short cut. Not wanting to waste more time, Tempt chose the left path and began hurriedly walking along the narrow and rocky trail. Shortly after, Tempt realized that someone or something was following her and she called for the entity to come forth. An animal, the color of fire with beady black eyes and a long bushy tail slinked out of the trees beside her. “How do you do?” the animal said, “I am Fox”. Tempt was in awe at Fox’s exquisiteness as she had never seen such an animal before. “I am Tempt” she said “I am following this path home but I fear the darkness will catch up with me first”. The fox smiled and his pointy white teeth glistened by the light of the dying sun. “Follow me then, for I know of a way that humans do not, it will lead you home in no time” said the smiling fox.

Tempt agreed and followed the fox into the dark forest. “To pass the time, we should tell each other stories” said the fox. “I love stories” said Tempt, “my Elders have told me many!” The fox smiled again, this time in a different way than before, a more menacing smile. But Tempt did not recognize this and she began to tell the fox a story about the moon and the stars. “What a beautiful story you have told me” said the fox, “I have a story for you, although I do not know if I should even tell you because it is not a peaceful or happy story”. “I have never heard a story like that” said Tempt, she was curious and begged the fox to tell her. Finally, the fox agreed, “but you must never tell this story to anyone else” he warned.

The fox told Tempt a story filled with disease, blood, lies, murder, and death. These were all things that Tempt had never heard or seen before and she became silent with fear. The evil story wrapped itself around her and held its hands over her mouth so that she could barley breath. Suddenly, the narrow path that they had been walking on opened up into a meadow and Tempt could see her village. The fox turned around and walked away without as much as a good bye.

Tempt walked into her village. Her eyes were glazed over and her limbs shook as if she was a tree in the wind. The Elders lay her down on a mat, giving her water and food, but she did not speak or tell them what had happened in the forest.

Months passed and Tempt still did not speak, she lay on her mat and became weaker and weaker, the evil stories energy draining her of happiness and the will to live. One day, Tempt realized that she was dying and knew she must warn her village of the fox and the evil story. She called out and everyone came running to her side. “Tempt has spoken!” they rejoiced, “She has come back to us!” But Tempt shook her head sadly and was barely able to speak but she recalled her encounter with the fox and his story. Then suddenly, Tempt closed her eyes forever. The village people stood around looking at each other in disbelief. Disease, famine, hate, lies, death. What were these things? Then as quickly as evil had wrapped itself around Tempt, it began to infect each villager one by one until evil had entered every man women and child.

To this day, evil lives inside every one of us. It was carried by the fox’s story and feeds on the naivety and caution-less curiosity of human beings. We must be careful about the stories we tell and hear, once they escape our lips they can never be taken back.

Works Cited

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Peterbough:Anansi Press. 2003. Print

Leslie Marmon Silko Final. (2013). Youtube, May 17 2013. <http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=leslie+silko+youtube&qpvt=leslie+silko+youtube&FORM=VDRE#view=detail&mid=8433E3456089404E97C68433E3456089404E97C6>

      This blog post is focused around the book If this is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? by J. Edward Chamberlin. More specifically, an answer to the question of how riddles and charms work. I will attempt to explain the idea of a ‘world of words’ and discuss how words are able to “make us feel closer to the world we live in” (1) but can also create confusion and distance.

The author Chamberlin claims that stories, and the desire to tell and listen, are at the center of human existence. They are our common ground as human beings. However, obstacles such as a lack of knowledge, the refusal to pay attention, and competition between ‘official’ titles become major problems where stories are concerned (Grace,114). Stories are responsible for ‘taking us into the world of words’ . This world of words that we live in today includes written texts, news broadcasts, conversations, story telling, text messages etc. Words are in everything and are involved in most communication used daily. Words can often bring us revelation; force us to rely on our imagination, tip everything we thought we knew up-side-down, and generate emotions of fear, love, passion, excitement etc. Words can be very powerful and control our opinions and actions (as seen here). They can also offer an imaginary escape, an excuse to let your mind run free, but they can also help us feel closer to our surroundings by forcing us to make connections to our own lives.

There is an importance in learning to listen more carefully and with greater acceptance of contradictions within phrases and words. As Chamberlin says in the beginning of If This is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories, “by the meaningless sign linked to the meaningless sound we have built the shape and meaning of the world” (8). Using words and language we are then building shape and meaning with stories and songs, which themselves are built on the “arbitrariness of words and images” (8). In this world of words, at what point do we feel them bring us closer to the physical world that we live in and when can they make us feel as though we are ‘falling down the rabbit hole’, lost in the words themselves.

Riddles are essentially contradictions wrapped up in a bow and are common across many cultures. Riddles give us the experience of how to deal with believing and not believing what we hear/read. Reading riddles involves “recognizing that a word is not what it is, and yet it is” (160), and we are required to make sense of nonsense. This requirement forces our brains into overdrive as we analyse every word in the riddle and then attempt to connect them to our real world hoping to make sense of them. I think that words in general have this affect on us daily, whether we are reading an advertisement in a newspaper or listening to a talk show host on the radio, we interpret words and their meanings by connecting them with our own lives. For example, this was a riddle my grandma once told me: how can a pants pocket be empty and still have something in it? It can have a hole in it. At first you do not believe this is possible, but after thinking about the riddle some more I automatically imagine my own pants and their pockets, then imagin what I usually have in them and if they were completely empty. With no tangible ‘objects’ left inside them the logical and correct answer is that they ‘have’ a hole in them (although this may take some time to conclude). In this way, words can force us to connect on a more deeper level with our world around us by engaging our minds and imaginations .

Chamberlin also discusses charms, which ” collapse the distinction between imagination and reality” (175) and are everywhere (creeds, constitutions, family stories). Chamberlin spends time re-telling a “true” story his grandfather had told him when he was a little boy and then discusses the question of credit. It is a question of filters,  we are taught from an early age not to believe everything we hear, but does this then make it more confusing to filter out the truths and lies? and do we honestly care about this in some situations (like our mother telling us a bed-time story)? As Chamberlin says, “it is only through the pressure of our imagination that we can resist the pressure of reality” (192). So is this a way of connecting us to our physical world, or do charms actually disconnect us from reality?

I will leave you with a beautiful poem by William Wentworth, an Australian poet who eloquently describes the beauty and power of words. Please feel free to leave a comment with your interpretation of this poem!

Works Cited

Chamberlin, Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground. AA.

Knopf. Toronto. 2003. Print.

Gardner, Andrea. (2010). “The power of Words” Web, 15 January 2015.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzgzim5m7oU>.

Grace, S. (2005). ‘If this is your land, where are your stories’? Finding common ground”. Canadian

          Literature, 184, 114-116. Web.

“William Charles Wentworth-Words.” Voices Compassion Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2015.

<http://voiceseducation.org/content/william-charles-wentworth-words>.

Hello! If you are reading this you have found my blog, Canadian literature studies. A place of observations, discoveries, comparisons, and hopefully some interesting pieces of writing! As for myself, my name is Leana and I am a 4th year English language major at UBC. When I’m not spending every waking moment studying or reading copious amount of course work, I like to practise yoga, dance ballet, and travel the world. I also spend time volunteering at the Britannia Homework club, assisting high school aged students with their reading and writing skills.

This blog is in response to the course English 470 Canadian Studies, instructed by Dr. Erika Paterson. We will be reading and analyzing historical Canadian literature  and assessing their impacts on Canadians. More specifically, we will focus on the similarities, differences, and intersections between Indigenous and European traditions of literature here in Canada. I am excited to read both types of literature, mostly because I have not read many Indigenous pieces of writing and am not accustomed to the style or popular stories. I hope to also weave in historical factors into my analysis of the readings because I believe that history is very important in understanding relationships in many literature works ( for example, the colonial relationships between Canadian First Nations and Europeans during the fur trade).

Canadian studies is a broad title that encompasses a multitude of things throughout Canada. For myself, this Canadian studies course should incorporate the historical relationships between Europeans and Indigenous peoples, a diverse range of Canadian people’s feelings and opinions over certain topics or issues throughout history, and the political/social reactions to select Canadian literary pieces.

Finally, I came across this blog by a man named Aaron all about Canadian literature and I thought I would share! Its easy to read, informative, and can even be helpful for those students pulling a all-nighter right before a Canadian literature exam! Check it out 🙂

My brother and I in front of the parliament buildings in Victoria, BC. Myself looking very patriotic in red pants and white top (not planned)

I am very excited to start this blogging journey and I welcome you all to say hi in the comment box below!