Reading Notes: British North America part B

Bibliography: British North American Tales, Source

Wolverine: Flickr

This time I decided to do my notes by analyzing the animals portrayed in these stories. A lot of them have the same animal mentioned more than once so I’m curious if certain stereotypes are portrayed for the same species in different stories.

Fox

• warrior, swift footed
• annoyed at Hare for being slow
• great smoker, and  banished hare to the brush
• hungry, quick eater
• not one to die easily, knows how to escape
• smart, clever, enemies with coyote

Hare

• warrior, swift footed
• liked to take his time and smoke his pipe
• went under bushes

Turtle

• lives alone, needs help from big animals
• crowd of little turtles ready to fight
• Smart, tricks eagles into “drowning” him
• “Turtle cannot be overpowered by anyone”

Deer

• kind to help turtle
• fought a tree and broke horns?

Bear

• clumsy, tries to help turtle
• kidnapped a woman, tried to keep her captive

Coyote

• magical and powerful, an old being
• lives for a long time, can hear when people call him
• traveled earth, naming things
• sort of a king to the animals,
• has a large stock of berries, fish, and is preparee
• easily eat other animals, not particularly nice
• “very lazy and sleepy”
• enemies with fox, tries to kill him

Mink

• “always talked a great deal”
• wanted to start salmon hunting, spoke for all animals

Salmon

• Often hunted, the victims in these stories
• they escape from the coyote and hop into the river
• took revenge on coyote

Birds

• Spreading messages, asking questions, always talking
• Thunder Bird is ominous yet important
• did not realize the wolverine was eating them

Wolverine

• tricked the ducks/geese into closing their eyes so he could eat them

• mischievous, often sings to animals to eat them

Wolves

• pack animals, stick together
• easily take down deer and other animals
• like to eat, not easily tricked

Eagle

• large, dangerous, and threatening
• throws turtle into the water to drown him,, but theyre dumb

Otter, Porcupine, Turtle

• All very small but brave
• join together to help outsmart Eagle