Story Lab: Revision of Week 7 Story
There once lived a group of women who seeked roots, herbs, and other wild food to feed their village. One day, on a trip home they became hungry and decided to eat something from the fields. One woman was so nice enough to share the little herbs and roots she had picked that day. The herbs and roots were so divine to taste because the woman took the time to pick the ripest.
The woman, who had picked all the delicious herbs and food, over heard the other women talking about her. They made her throw away her wonderful herbs because they were jealous their's were not as great and this really saddened her. She decided that she wasn't going to listen to them and ran into the woods where she came upon a hare.
"Give me some water that I may drink", she requested of the hare. The hare responded that he had borrowed the cup from his uncle lion and she could not drink from it.
Once again she asked only to be met with the same reply. At this point she was pretty frustrated and thought what kind of hare has an uncle lion. Therefore, she snatched the cup away and teased the little rabbit claiming how she would not be scared of a lion.
Soon enough Uncle Lion appeared and once again asked the woman not to be drinking out of his cup. She then giggled and yelled, "only if you can catch me". They played, running around this shrub. The longer they played the more the lion began licking his lips, for he was becoming hungry. The woman noticed how much more aggressive he had became for wanting to pin her down. Little did she know that would be the last moment she remembered. The lion ate her insides put on the woman's skin over his body saying, "that's what she deserved". However when the lion, now appearing as the woman, went into the village to wreck havoc, he realized that people were no longer scared of him. Instead he became scared of the people, especially the women. They teased him and made him do all the hard work. That is when he realized that the woman he ate was truly just playful and needed a drink. And from that day forward, the lion vowed to never be selfish again for he doesn't know what others have went through.
Author's Note:
I took this story from the original version of Lion Who Took a Woman's Shape. I originally felt inspired to take the first part of the story and rewrite in the woman's perspective due to wanting to see/show how she may have felt about the situation. After reading comments on my first post of this story I decided to go back in and rid the part about the woman's heart and focus more on the treatment of the woman. Therefore creating the overall moral of my story to be, not to judge others till you have walked in their shoes.
Bibliography:
South African Folk-Tales by James Honey (1910)
Hey there Crystel. I didn't get to read your original story, so I'm not sure about the actual revision and I'm just going off of what I read above! I think the concept of your story is really intricate. I also didn't read the story that your adaptation is based off of so if that's how the beginning went, that's such a sad situation :c I think that you could have showed more emotion in the woman character that you created because I wasn't sure how she transitioned from giving her herbs but to seeming forceful in taking the water from the animals. Even if she just wanted to play, it didn't seem that way until you talked about the lion going back to the village and living as her. Other than that, I think that the perspective you told this in was great!
ReplyDeleteHi Crystel,
ReplyDeleteI thought your story was an interesting way of teaching a moral about not being selfish. I don't think the woman should have taken the cup and teased the hare, but I still kind of felt bad for her, since it seemed like maybe she was just trying to be playful (although maybe being playful with a lion wasn't a great idea) and have some fun after a bad day at work.