English Literature for Boys and Girls: Chapters 10 and 11

Chapter 10

Chapter 10 basically sets up 11, which is the story of Beowulf.

In the time of Charles I, there lived a man named Sir Robert Cotton, who was an antiquary. An antiquary is someone who collects books, coins and manuscripts.

His library was taken from him twice. Once, it was used for the King’s enemies, and that got the library taken away. The second time, he wasn’t even alive, but the library was given to his grandson.

One dark day, an antiquary’s worst nightmare happened the library. It burned down, with most of the books. One book that was almost still fully intact was a long poem called Beowulf…

 

Chapter 11, The Story of Beowulf:

There once lived a King named Hrothgar, who won many battles, had an enemy he could not defeat, a monster, called the Grendel. Of course, there’s always a hero that emerges to defeat an enemy, because that’s how stories work, you don’t just see “Then the monster killed everyone and ruled over the land forever.”.

This time, that hero is Beowulf!

Beowulf just comes, and just rips his arm off with his bare hands, where people once tried to hack off with swords…. But the Grendel escapes, but eventually dies. Then, Beowulf hears word of another monster, the Grendel’s mother, the Water-Witch. When he goes to fight, Beowulf is dragged beneath the waves of the ocean, but just kills the Water Witch too. Later, Beowulf hears of a Fire Dragon, and knows that this will be his last fight. He bravely fights to the death with his followers, all but 1 of which desert him. His last follower defeated the Dragon, after Beowulf’s death. Beowulf would be remembered as long as he would be…..

Keystone, CO and Snowboarding

Hmmm…. What’s been going on in my life? Snowboarding. School. And that’s about it…..

Isaac, Jadyn and I just joined Team Summit, which is an awesome snowboarding team, where we learn park and how to ride better.

We’ve had friends in and out of our house, and… I really don’t know what else to say…. It’s just been boarding and school.

I learned a backside 180 off a jump, and we’ve been practicing some grabs, shifties and butters. Here’s a video of Isaac and me going off some small jumps, Isaac doing a grab and a shiftie, and me doing a backside 180 (spinning 180 degrees on my board around putting my heel edge first)

 

We went off some pretty big jumps in Park Lane (a medium park in Breckenridge). So far this year we’ve boarded these mountains:

  • Keystone
  • Breckenridge
  • Arapahoe Basin
  • Vail
  • Beaver Creek
  • Steamboat
  • Copper Mountain

So…. That brings our total mountains to:

  • Brighton
  • Snowbird
  • Sundance
  • Park City
  • Canyons
  • Wolf Mountain
  • Solitude
  • Durango Mountain
  • Wolf Creek
  • Telluride
  • Crested Butte
  • Monarch Mountain
  • Kendall Mountain
  • Arapahoe Basin
  • Loveland
  • Copper Mountain
  • Buttermilk
  • Aspen Snowmass
  • Sunlight
  • Steamboat
  • Keystone
  • Breckenridge
  • Vail
  • Beaver Creek

Wow…. 25 mountains… Hopefully we can make it out to the Lake Tahoe resorts, which are Heavenly, Northstar and Kirkwood. We also might take a trip to Utah to do Park City and Canyons.

Well, that’s about it, I gotta go write some more narrations……

 

English Literature for Boys and Girls: Chapters 1 and 2

So… I’ve been reading the wrong book for the past school term, and today I’m going to catch up the 13 chapters I didn’t read of the right book (thankfully much shorter than the one I wasn’t supposed to read), and narrate them (with morals, because they’re stories!).

 

Chapter 1:

The first chapter is basically an introduction. It begins with the author telling the reader, “Has there ever been a time when no stories were told? Has there ever been a people who did not care to listen? I think not.”

It goes on to tell about the history of books. In the beginning, men were “savage,” but as time went on, men became less savage, and over time, began to tell tales, most of which have been lost to time. Some years later, people began hand-writing manuscripts. Even further along in history, monks began writing what we call literature, literally meaning letters, which is somehow different than manuscripts, even though they were both hand-written at the time…..

Moral: “Don’t call the introduction Chapter 1”

Chapter 2:

So here begins the story telling…

Once upon some time in history that might not actually have happened ’cause it seems kinda far fetched, there lived a King and Queen in England. They had a good marriage, but then they didn’t (:P). They had a very childish quarrel about who had more riches (Which is so dumb…. I thought they shared! They’re the RULERS!!!).

So the King counted up all his jewels, and the Queen hers, and they discovered they had equal. (What a surprise!) Then, they counted up their ships, and discovered the same thing…Then, they counted up their underwear clothes, and lo and behold (as they would say), THEY HAD THE SAME!

They counted up their livestock, and just by chance, the king had one extra bull. This bull used to be the queens, but it didn’t like her, so it went over to the king’s livestock. The queen, in need of a better bull, heard about the legendary (not really) Brown Bull.

She sends some messengers to ask the owner if the queen could borrow the bull for 1 year, and at the end of the year, she would pay him back with interest. The man agrees, and the messengers lodges at his house for the night. That night, one of the man’s servants overhears the messengers talking about the bull, and if the man did not agree, they boasted that they would’ve taken it by force. The servant goes to the man, who is angry and decides not to give the bull.

So the queen goes to war with the man and his friends, and in the battle, the bull dies.

Moral: “Always have the exact same riches as your wife.”

English Literature for Boys and Girls: Chapters 3, 4 and 5

So… Continuing off from where I was going to continue off from, which was last chapter, I’m going to continue.

Chapter 3

There once was a king, and his name was Conor. Now one night, Conor went to his chief Story-Teller’s house for dinner, and a child was born to Felim the story teller. Now there was a druid there, and the druid foretold that the daughter of Felim would later cause great ruin to the kingdom.

Everyone voted to kill the child (who they named Deirdre, which means trouble), but the King voted against, taking the baby and keeping her far away from everyone in a tower.

14 years later, Deirdre meets Naisi, who takes her away, so that they can marry each other. Now Conor wanted Deirdre for his Queen, and he was enraged to find that she had left. Naisi goes and hides her with his two brothers. They eventually for no reason set out for Conor’s palace, where Naisi and his brothers are killed, and she dies too, of sadness.

Moral: “Don’t go to places you know you”ll die at for no reason.”

Chapter 4

Once there was a man named James Macpherson, and he was a writer. He collected poems, and wrote poems, and compiled them into a book. People loved the book, and he got a lot of praise.

He published a second book, poems about Ossian, a poet. At first the book was met with praise, but some jealous Irish say that Ossian was an Irish poet, and James was stealing their heroes from them. A lot of people questioned whether he actually wrote the poems himself!

A famous writer, Dr. Samuel Johnson, hated James Macpherson, and told everybody he didn’t write the poems. Johnson was more known than Macpherson, so naturally, people believed him. To this day, we don’t actually know if he did write the poems or not….. So….

Moral: “Don’t steal (unless you really need to). “

 

Chapter 5

Chapter 5 was about a very hard to understand poem from his book, and in this book they stated that it really is hard to understand. Basically what happens is this:

Two armies, lead by two men named Cathullin and Swaran, are fighting. They fight for days, with no victor. Suddenly another man with an army comes in named Fingal, and Cathullin runs in fear. Now Fingal and Swaran fight for days. Then suddenly Swaran decides to make peace, and they departed as friends. Fingal returns to his homeland.

Moral: “Know your enemy, or a lot of pointless fighting will insue.”

That last chapter seemed kinda dumb to me…..