Reading Notes: Native American Marriage Tales, Part B

Continuing with the bizarre Native American Marriage Tales unit, part B began with the story of The Dog-Husband. A question I have is why is being with an animal suddenly weird in this story? Perhaps it is the circumstances surrounding the "marriage" to the dog. Plot wise, I actually really like the idea of people being able to change form, so that would be a lot of fun to write. I could make this a normal thing, or it could be normal for all but a special few. I am not certain yet.
I cannot tell if the story of The Youth Who Joined the Deer is cannibalistic or not. The youth can turn into a deer, and so can his wife and child, and he kills his brothers-in-law, who are deer and eats them. I still like the idea of being able to change into an animal, but I'm not sure about killing that animal and eating it too. If I created a story like this, I would make it less morbid. 

The story of The Girl and the Turkeys is like a cross between Cinderella and the Goose Girl. I really enjoyed it until the end. I didn't want the girl to lose her turkeys and I would have liked it to end differently. I loved her sweet relationship with her turkeys, and I was sad when they left. I still enjoyed this almost rags to riches story and it would be fun to write a story like this.
I enjoyed the story of The True Bride a lot actually. I love happy endings and I love when good things happen to good people. The story has suspense and drama and is really good. It definitely reminded me of the story of the girl who has jewels coming out of her mouth, and the girl who has bugs coming out, which was a story I enjoyed as a child. Writing a story like this, with a poor girl who becomes royalty, would be fun, or even to add a twist like being able to spit gold. Even though most of these stories were really odd, I enjoyed them and found a lot of inspiration from them. 

Biography: Native American Marriage Tales collected by Stith Thompson. Source link: Part B

Image information: White Tailed Deer taken by skeeze, 2012. Web source: Pixabay