Day Nine

In the story of the "The Blue Bird" there are a couple of fantasy creatures and objects. First there is, of course, the blue bird. The blue bird is the main fantasy creature in the story. In the original story he was transformed by the Fairy Mazilla for the refusal of marrying the step-sister. Fairies and the Enchanter are also fantasy characters in the original story. However in my pastiche the fairies will replaces as sorcerers, since there's only two fairies, the fairy godmother, and the good fairy at the end. My version of the enchanter will just be a good friend of the samurai, instead of a someone with magical powers. Other fantasy creatures were the chariot frogs, however, I have decided not to use their existence, just so that the story wouldn't be so complicated. Also, I can't seem to think of mythical creature to replace them with, so unless I can find mythical creatures, then a version of the frogs won't be needed. Plus, I do not think that it'll make that much of a difference if they're in it or not, they're basically just like horses for the chariot that the Enchanter rides in. The last fantasy object that I can recall are four eggs at the end when the good fairy gives to the Princess, and they helped her through her journey of finding the prince.

Although in the folk tale, the species of the blue bird was never mentioned, I've decided to use a blue heron for the creature that the Prince turns into. At first I thought about using a fish, but then I found out that the heron was actually a religious significance during the Heian Period, as I had mentions in my Day Four blog.

In replacement of the fairies I chose sorcerers because they're probably the closet thing that I can think of that can relate to the Japanese. I did think about shamans however, but shamans don't really use magic, they're just more of a communicator with the supernatural world. A part of the definition of the word shaman actually says that they use magic to cure illness, however, I believe it's more a religion and a practice in which they just talk to spirits of the world and they believe its the spirits can help them to cure illnesses. Where as to a sorcerer is mainly uses magic, but then my desicion is not completely final yet. So, this is a small matter that I can just do more research upon.

The enchanter is a good friend of the Prince, but in my version I am making him the samurai's friend. In my Day Five blog, I talked about the Shudo way in the samurai society. So, I was thinking about it and thought that this was a terrific opportunity to use Samurai Nobuo's novice samurai as the friend who comes and saves him. Since the Enchanter in the story doesn't use magic, then in my story he's just a normal person.

In the original folk tale, four eggs were given to Princess Fiordelisa, and each one contained something that would help her with her journey when she was finding the prince. Since Japan is a island country, I was thinking of using magic seashells. I guess I just did't really like the idea of eggs, so I thought I would use something prettier. Besides, the eggs were given to the Princess when she was sitting beside a brook, so I think seashells would be a great replacement. Also, the way my princess uses them may be a little different.

These are just my thoughts about my fantasy objects. I haven't really given it a long enough thought into it, so this will just be a start of connecting my objects into my version of the story.