Since the boys were little, I've been telling them bedtime stories. These are inevitably titled The Four Brave So and Sos. They've been everything from crewmen with Captain Cook, to Continental Regulars, to Saxon warriors. Our newest series is The Four Brave Presbyterians, and has them running around Scotland with John Knox, struggling with the Papists for the soul of the nation.
My all-time favorite is The Four Brave Calvinist Ninjas. Admittedly, it wasn't easy telling that one with a straight face. They were part of a clan whose daimyo and household had converted after a visit by Dutch merchants and missionaries, and then had to face the wrath of Hideyoshi after his ban on Christianity. I'm planning a sequel to that one.
Posted by Discoshaman at mai 23, 2004 11:27 PM | TrackBack
Nice to be present at the creation - Google can't find any trace of "Calvinist Ninjas." Pretty slippery characters, they are.
Posted by: The Liberal Media at mai 24, 2004 01:02 AMThat's awesome. We have a running series of stories where each of my girls is a lady/warrior defending the family estate from invaders. I stole C.S. Lewis's idea: each one has a different weapon, and the sounding of the horn brings their father into any scene that becomes to cumbersome.
Posted by: swamphopper at mai 24, 2004 01:11 AMOops. Make that *too* cumbersome.
Posted by: swamphopper at mai 24, 2004 01:12 AMLib-
There's a tiny element of artistic license at work here. For example, the fact that Hideyoshi was stone dead before John Calvin was born. I take kind of a Michael Moore approach to my historical stories. . . Reality can be so dull, after all. ;-)
Swamphopper-
That's awesome. The Duchess and I are tag-teaming the reading duties these days. She's on book 6 of Narnia, I'm on #3 of the Harry Potter books. That's the last one any of them will read til they're a good bit older.
Posted by: Discoshaman at mai 24, 2004 01:19 AMClarification -- the last of the Potter books. The Narnia ones are all on the approved list. . .
Posted by: Discoshaman at mai 24, 2004 02:18 AMHow exciting your stories are. I think our boys were born before the Ninjas. Our stories were more in the Winnie the Pooh line, with details culled from our everyday life.
Hooray for the Dutch merchants! With a Dutch Calvinist heritage, I especially like that part.
Strange. I plan to raise my kids on stories of how the Inquisition was a step in the right direction and Henry VIII and Luther were adulterous schismatics.
Posted by: GE at mai 24, 2004 06:30 PMGE-
Good on ya. Parents should teach their kids to be proud of what they are. Ideally, they should also belong to something worth BEING proud of, but that's another issue. ;-)
Posted by: Discoshaman at mai 24, 2004 08:31 PMCalvinist ninjas. Hum.
Methinks we need a boychild next.
Jared-
They are a LOT of fun. The Duchess and I agreed back when I was 16 that we'd have 6 boys and 2 girls. She wanted the boys, I the daughters. Methinks it's my turn. . .
Posted by: Discoshaman at mai 25, 2004 01:06 AM