Legend of the Magibird

Exploring the "Legend of the Magibird" (APPENDIX ESSAY)

I wanted to write a story about someone hunting for a phoenix. I expanded it to include a persistent, brave teen who looks for adventure and wants to gain his father's respect while having no clue how to achieve it, with the phoenix hunt and the context/background. It was inspired by a Russian folk song I had heard called "Tale of the Firebird", based on an eponymous Slavic legend. It is a beautiful and lively melody with a Russian guitar that makes you feel like you are hunting for the firebird yourself. I did some research and found that there is an analogous legend by the Grimm Brothers called "The Golden Bird", so I read up on that legend in a book that my father has about the Grimms' Complete Fairy Tales which had three brothers trying to capture a golden bird stealing their father's apples. From that point on, I had my idea.

At first, I wrote down an outline of the story in a document, as I wanted to make sure that I had a roadmap when I started to write. Almost everything in the story has a point to it, even the names of the characters. "Bratko" is a Slavic name meaning "brother", representing the younger brother, who was weaker and not the preferred son of his father. He is also not really that remarkable before the story, hence he is only named as "brother". "Boyan" on the other hand, is a name for "battle", showing that the older brother was physically stronger and the preferred son of his father, for which he had a hubris that would be detrimental to him later in the story. "Lada" is the name of the woman in the story, and it means "fertile": indeed, in Slavic mythology Lada is the goddess of fertility. I gave her this name because of her beauty and her well-built body, and because she is meant to be bound to Bratko in marriage at the end. "Gniewko" means "angry", and it refers to how the duke is an angry and bitter man who does not understand love, which would end up being his downfall at the story's end. Finally, "Vlad" means ruler, and the father of Bratko and Boyan is named so because he rules over the principality and castle of Boyko. He is also a better ruler and person than the Duke was, for which he won the woman they were both competing for.

In the beginning of the story, I had the main character Bratko wake up from a hangover in the inn because I wanted him and his brother to have a challenge of being distracted easily and also clumsy: that is originally what makes them lose their father's necklace in the first place, setting their quest into motion. Indeed, I chose to call the inn the "Iris Inn" and to have its symbol as a rainbow because it is a metaphor in my story for pleasure and distractions. The rainbow is beautiful with its many colors, but it also serves as a distraction and an addiction as the colors take away your focus. The inn has the best drinks of many colors and many games as a place for pleasure, which is why so many people stay in it. Iris is the Greek goddess of rainbows. The inn was inspired by a part of the Golden Bird story where the three brothers must choose an inn to stay at: a run down one or a nice-looking one. The first two choose the latter and end up getting distracted by it, while the youngest brother bypasses it. That is also why I chose to make the bird a phoenix: due to its many colours it attracts, yet ironically it helps free the brothers from their indulgence at the inn and gives them a goal. That is one message of the story: overcoming distractions and hedonism, staying focused and correcting your mistakes. This resonated with me this semester as I struggled with focusing and staying on task, because at home and with the Internet, there are so many distractions. That is why I decided to write a story with the characters having this problem: so I could put my struggles in a story.

The phoenix is attractive and tempting but unreachable, so it can be compared to Tantalus from Greek mythology, who seeks food and drink, yet it is always out of his reach, although I did not originally have this thought when I wrote the story. Lada both fits and challenges the separate spheres conception of the weak woman in the private sphere. In the beginning, she is a prisoner of her husband, the duke. She is abused by him and coerced to always obey him. This is in line with the coverture system where the husband and wife are one, with the former fully influencing the latter. It is Lada's innocence and integrity that transforms her into the bird, as she refused to relinquish the amulet which her husband demanded she give to him so he could destroy it. Lada's curse is a casting out of the home and a transformation into a bird which is sort of a reversal of the woman confined to the home. At the same time, the woman is trapped in her form as a bird and has sight problems, so she could still be said to be cursed to the private. She requires that Bratko save her by grabbing the water from the Pool of Many Colours, and Bratko does fulfill some of the male virtues such as courage in the perils and trials that he faces. But at the same time, it is only by Lada's choosing that she meets him. She ends up saving Bratko from the rock in the cliff and her facial expressions give him a hint in choosing the right portion of meat. So rather than Bratko doing everything, Lada plays a big part in the story, and they both work together to solve their problems: Lada gives him the necklace while Bratko frees her from her curse as a bird. I chose to refer to Lada as simply a "bird" because I did not want to outwardly give away that she was a phoenix and thought that it would better engage the reader if they could discover that themselves. That is also why I did not reveal her curse until the very end.