Reading Notes: The Bad Wife, Part A.

Russian Fairy Tales by W. R. S. Ralston (1887).

A wife never listened to her husband when he spoke, and did the opposite of anything he said. If he asked for food, she said he didn't deserve any; but if he said he didn't want food, she made a feast. If he told her to relax, she did chores. 

He was so fed up, he went to the forest to look for berries. While searching he found a bottomless pit and contemplated if he should put her in it to teach her a lesson. So when he returned home, he told her not to look for berries. Then - she jumped into the bottomless pit. The husband returned home happy, and for 3 days it was bliss. On the fourth day, he visited his wife and dropped a rope, and when he pulled it back up a demon was attached. 

The demon begged for mercy and to not be let back down, as some evil woman has been killing them. He promised to repay him for mercy. The man let him free, and the demon asked him to follow as the demon was going to torment people while the man helped them. 

In the town, the demon possessed other's wives and daughters, who went crazy. Then, the man would show up and as soon as he did the demon would leave and a blessing would fall on the house. Everyone started to think the man was a doctor and gave him money for making the demon leave. 

Once the demon made him alot of money, he said he was finished and off to go posess someone else but did not want the man to be there. If the man showed up, the demon threatened to eat him. The town people looked for the man when the next woman went crazy, and he came. He asked them to leave him alone, and he told the people to crack the horses whips and scream "the bad wife has come!"

When the man entered the house, the demon came out and said he would eat him. The man said, I just came to warn you my wife is back. The demon looked out the window and saw the townspeople shouting about the bad wife, and asked the man where he could hide. The man told the demon to hide in the pit since she was gone. The demon returned, to where the wife still was. The girl was free and her family made her the mans new wife and gave him land. To this day, the bad wife still is in the pit. 

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Afterthoughts 

What a roller coaster - I loved this story. The picture is of a demon from the TV show Disenchantment - if you liked Futurama, the writers made this new show on netflix! 

Week 11 Story: You can't run, You can't hide.

Thump Thump Thump. 

It's a windy day. The shutters keep slamming on the windows.

Thump Thump Thump. 

It really is hard to concentrate with that banging. And now, suddenly rain? Or is that hail? 

THUMP THUMP THUMP. 

Jeez! Knock much? Who could possibly be at the door in the rain. I'll just look through the peephole. Hmm... I can't see much but his face through the peephole. Which is... creepy. When was the last time this guy got a hair cut? I think I'll keep the door shut. 

"Hello?"

"Yes, sorry to bother you but I'm looking for someone. His name is Judas."

"I'm sorry but I don't know anyone by that name."

"He betrayed my friend Chris."

"Well I am sorry for your friend but as I said, I don't know anyone by that name. Please leave now."

THUMP. 

he jumps back.

I better triple lock this door. Chain should be good on top of the deadbolt and handle lock. 

windy day, doing chores around the house. 

he puts the chain on the door, looking through the peephole again. 

Oh thank goodness, hes gone. 

Thump Thump Thump. 

Still, with the shutters? I need to close them, the forecast didn't call for damaging winds but apparently they're wrong. 

he walks to the window, and before he gets there he hears,

Tap Tap Tap 

he freezes where he stands.

What... Whats going on...

he peers around the corner, and then runs to the kitchen. 

"911? Yes there is a man standing outside my window. He's in a trench coat, tall, I didn't see much other than he's bald."

he peeks over the counter.

"He isn't there anymore, but I would really love it if you could send over a cop."

Ding-Dong

"Oh, wow that was fast thank you so much."

he opens the door to a man with short blonde hair. 

"Officer? Are you... are you an officer? Because... wait, why are you wearing a trench coat?"

he tries to shut the door, but the man breaks it off the hinges. 

"What are you!"

It's not one man, but all three he has seen - one man with three faces. 

"Get away from me!"

he turns to run, and falls into an abyss. suddenly he slams onto the floor. 

Where the hell am I?

"Hello, Brutus."

Oh no, its that terrible three faced man from before. 

"Please, just let me go"

"I can't do that. You see, you and your friend Cassius did a very bad thing. Now you get to wait here, while I go fetch him, and you'll both get to meet Judas"

"Okay, and then what?"

"And then your eternal damnation begins"

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Authors Note: 

I took this story from Dante's inferno and just ran with what came to mind. I thought to introduce the devil with wind, as in the story the devil is causing unnatural winds that Dante feels before he meets the devil. The devil is also waist deep in ice when Dante does see him, so I added hail/rain with his official appearance. The devil has three faces, so I decided to use that and trick the character into thinking he was seeing three separate people. The sounds were just ideas that I thought of when I think of past scary movies, and I ended it basically as a prequel to what Dante will eventually witness - the devil torturing all of them with his three different heads. 

Reading Notes: The Land of the Dead, Part B

A young woman died, and when she found herself dead she went to sleep. She awoke to someone shaking her, saying you are not asleep - you are dead so you must get up.

She realized she was in her grave and it was her grandfather shaking her. She went with him back to the village, but the homeland was gone. Now it was a new village, weird and different. The old man told her to go into one of the houses, and when she did the homeowner picked up a stick and asked what she wanted. The young woman ran away crying, and her grandfather said this is a village of dog shades - she has just been in the experience of a stray dog, and now she knows how they feel when people beat them.

In the next village she saw a man laying on the ground, but with grass growing through his joints. He could move but the grass tied him down, not allowing him to get up. This realm was where people were punished for pulling up plants when they didn't need them. The grandfather disappear.

The girl wandered into a new village, but found a river blocking it. This was a river of tears from people on earth who wept for the dead. She could not cross the river, and her own tears fell into the river as she cried. Suddenly, a boat floated down the river and using it as a bridge, she crossed the stream. The other dead could smell her, and openly wondered who she was and where she was - as they could only smell not see her. Her grandfather reappeared, leading her into a house where her grandmother resided.  The grandma asked if she was thirsty and thats when the girl noticed the water vessel was one from her village, one she had been given when she was alive during a festival. The old woman gave the young woman a piece of deer fat, which was something else she had received at the festival. The grandma explained her grandfather was her guide, because he was the last person she thought of as she died and he hurried to meet her crossing over. Peoples living thoughts are heard by the dead in the other realm.

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For whatever reason, coffin pool floats are a thing. 

Reading Notes: The Buffalo Stone, Part A

Blackfeet Indian Stories by George Bird Grinnell (1915).

A small stone, usually a fossil or some unknown thing in a weird shape, is called a buffalo stone. It has magic powers and gives good luck when hunting buffalo. The rock can make a sound similar to a bird, usually alerting the person who finds it that it is in fact a buffalo stone. These are usually found in prairie plains. 

One weird winter all the buffalo disappeared. The snow was too deep for anyone to try to find the, so they walked the river bottoms and ravines, killing other grass grazers as they went. Eventually though, they ran out of small game and began to starve.  

A man had killed a prairie rabbit, and ran home fast to tell his wife to hurry up and cook it - excited at the rare find. She went down to the river to clean it but stopped, hearing a song but seeing no birds. She located the source of song to a tree, with a weird stone jammed into the roots. She noticed some buffalo fur had been caught in the tree. Frightened at the thought of being alone and weaponless with wild buffalo, she went no further. As she turned away, the singing stopped. The stone spoke now, and asked to be taken to her village where she should teach her people the song she heard. The stone told her to pray for this starvation to end and for the buffalo to return. 

The woman did what the rock said to do, telling her husband of the events that just happened. The wife taught the chiefs the song, and they all prayed. Soon after, they heard noise of trampling buffalo and that the stone was magic. This was the first buffalo stone found. 

The buggalo are a fictional creature that are sort of like the buffalo to the native americans as the buggalo are to the native martians on the TV show Futurama. Image source. I had a typo when I first wrote buffalo and wrote buggalo, so why not include a picture of them.