Journey

Woke up here alone

Walked towards the mountain that’s far

I made some new friends

Her long blonde hair has powers

Everybody is jealous

Evil will steal it

A cat with boots

The ogre was killed with charm

A princess marries

I decided to write a Haiku on the tale “Puss in Boots” by Charles Perrault. I started by googling popular fairytales and came across the story. I had never read the full story and it was very interesting to read. The story is about the father of three sons who died and left his cat to one of his sons. The other two sons decided to live together, but they refused to let their brother live with them because he only inherited a cat. This was no ordinary cat. The cat could talk and asked for a pair of boots which the son gave her. The cat was sneaky and would trick rabbits by bribing them with food and then would capture them for her owner to eat. She then started gifting the rabbits to the king who was impressed. She then decided to go after the ogre that had haunted and frightened the village for many years. This ogre had the special power of shape shifting into different animals. She tricked the ogre into shifting into a mouse and immediately killed him.

Her next plan involved convincing her owner to bathe and while he does this she steals his clothes. She then finds the King’s carriage and tells him someone has stolen her owners clothes. The Kinds sends for new clothes for him which make him much more attractive. The cat scares all of townspeople into saying that the beautiful fields belong to her owner and not the ogre that she killed. The fields impress the king so much that he gives him his daughter, the princess, to marry. The cat lives the rest of her days in the castle, never having to hunt again .

I really enjoyed finding out about this story through this assignment (1 star). The story dates back to the 1600s, and its origin was either Italy or France. I had no idea how old this story was. I thought it was a more recent publication in the Shrek movies or TV shows. Like many other tales, it has the meaning of things sometimes being worth more than they seem. Her owner got to become a prince and live in the castle while his brothers had to continue living their normal lives. I also found the story very amusing with its description of the cat and how she was very sneaky which is very true of most cats.

I read through the story and tried to sum it up in the short writing of a Haiku. I wanted to be as descriptive as possible with the words, but it was hard due to the syllable restrictions. I wanted the first line to have information on the cat in boots because that has a funny mental image and also states the cat is not just some ordinary cat. I thought in was important to discuss the ogre since his land is what won the King over and convinced him to give his daughter’s hand in marriage to the owner. The third line was the hardest because I wanted to be much more descriptive and tell how she and the cat’s owner married, but I also wanted people to read between the lines on who she married.

Until next time,

Emily

One of my favorite Tumblrs was the Godzilla Haiku, which I haven’t seen in a long time. So when I saw this assignment, I had to try it. I decided to use the Mothman, a West Virginia legend and the namesake of a movie that creeped me out many years ago.

My haiku is pretty lame, especially by Godzilla standards, so I stuck it on an image to give it some character. I found the image through CC Search, which is a good way to find material that’s licensed for adaptation and reuse. The image credit is: By Tim Bertelink – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46584699