Week 2 Story: Susanoo Retold
Susanoo Retold
The story begins with Suso who on the way to hunt found a chopstick flowing down the river. Obviously curious Suso figured there must be people at the river bank and decided he wanted to see what kind of people they were. In a world where there are gods, humans, fairies, and other mythological creatures he found it important to find out what kind of people they are because he has not seen humans in this area before. While walking up the river he stumbles upon 3 people a bearded old man his wife and the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Inquiring as to what kind of people they were and they introduced themselves as humans and descendants of fairies. He noticed that they seemed troubled and asked what was wrong. They began to delve into the story of they got there and that they are actually mourning the deaths of their 8 daughters. They tell Suso that they are targeted by the serpent Lord Orochi who has killed their daughters and others of their kind to obtain their wings which hold high value. Suso wanted more information on the serpent Lord Orochi and even tells them he will slay the monster under one condition. The condition was the marriage of their fairy daughter. Suso finally introduced himself as Prince and brother of the sun goddess Amaterasu. The bearded man and his wife agreed and Suso set out to fight Lord Orochi. Suso was no average fighter and after hearing what he was up against decided to set out traps for Lord Orochi. He laid out a barrel full of gold and a twisted tea knowing it was Lord Orochis drink of choice. Orochi arrived and immediately began to down the twisted tea. Once distracted, Suso took this as his chance and sliced Orochi's head off in one clean swing. Upon defeating the monster he was awarded the marriage of the bearded man's fairy daughter.
Suso's Favorite River Hunting Ground
(Source: Kabino)
Authors Note: For this story, I kept the basic storyline of the original. The original storied discusses Susa no wo whom among his journey stumbled upon a crone, old man, and a maiden. After hearing their tragic story he decided to take care of their monster problem with the condition of marrying their daughter. I changed a few things from the original like character names but the plot of the story remained the same. I also tried to add some humor and more modern concepts to this Japanese mythological story. Another concept I added different from the original was the presence of fairies and a world beyond just Gods and humans.
Bibliography: Romance of Old Japan Part 1: The Divine
Hi Wesley,
ReplyDeleteThe inclusion of the twisted tea was hilarious. When you mentioned it at first, I was expecting Suso to bludgeon Lord Orochi with it while he was distracted with the gold, but the mental image of a giant serpent chugging a can of twisted tea was priceless. The choice to include fairies is an interesting choice, did you know that there are many different types of fairies across mythologies? I find it so neat how many different cultures have similar concepts in their tales of magical creatures. The Fair Folk are a particular favorite of mine, given their prevalence in Celtic and Germanic pagan faiths (which as a reconstructionist Heathen is what mine qualifies as). I like that the fairy family remains unnamed, as personal names hold power to the Fair Folk.
I hope the randomizer allows me to read more of your work in the future,
-A.
Hey Wesley,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your story! You seemed to keep many of the elements in your story the same as the original one, and I think that's awesome because you even gave your own twists. I, too, really liked the twisted tea part! It was just kind of out of the blue but was a good laugh! It seemed to even play a crucial part in the story. I think it's awesome that you were able to take a Japanese mythological story and alter it a little bit to your liking!