Myths, Tales, Folkore, and Fairies

Greetings, my beloved, estranged, and neglected blog!

A lot of things have been happening in my life these past few months which I will blame entirely on my absence and not my extreme lack of self-control and questionable work ethic.

In April, I left my long-time barista job for better prospects: …a less than enthusiastic venture into waitressing. The money was fantastic (but hard earned) and the people charmingly miserable about their jobs yet astoundingly pleasant to be around. But as the weekends disappeared all together and the doubleshifts mounted, I was suddenly without free time and hopelessly short on motivation–nursing that couch and Netflix queue like a cure-all. I arrived at the conclusion quite rapidly that I needed to be free so I quickly went out and got myself a big girl job and life has been pretty grand since!

I managed to kick out a video game article in the mean time, but now I’m ready to get back into research and history! Which brings me to my new project idea…during one of my many recent Netflix binges, I stumbled across Once Upon a Time. And while it’s not exactly Sopranos level of television delicacy, I enjoy it quite a bit as well as the new found spark I have for the stories that inspired it. I can’t help but feel like I’m extremely out of touch with our cultural milestones of yester-year, and it’s certainly been ages since I popcorn-read Heracules in front of 12-year-old peers, internally admonishing them all for mispronouncing half of the names. In fact, I must admit, even as much strength my relationship with History has, I have been rather neglectful of it for quite some time…having not actually READ some of the most famous texts including Beowulf, Tales of Genji, and the Epic of Gilgamesh for starters.

Well, of course, this will be my new mission going forward. Roughly attempting to start from the beginning in a lenient chronological order, I will be going back to the basics, so to speak. Looking over and finally reading the stories that have spanned across time and this world since we’ve collectively decided that writing things down goes beyond economic list-keeping usefulness.

So, if you’re still with me and plan on being with me (hopefully less tentatively this time), I plan on covering the big stories from big civilizations in history and, maybe, if I find some good sources, the not so big ones. And like all decent History blogs should, I’ll make sure to keep everyone well briefed on the subjects at hand as I move through my work!

Next up, I’ll be dabbling in Ancient Sumeria…