Week 13 - Story, the Turtle and the Two Geese

One day long ago there was a little turtle. He wasn't even alive for very long when he became anxious to leave the nest. He was always a very curious little turtle. His exploring led him to another nest, this nest was quite different from his nest however. This nest had a lot of long feathers in it and it made a lot more noise than his did. As he ventured in further he discovered that there were two little beaks bobbing up and down in the nest.

"Well hi there!" he said to his newly discovered friends. He was instantly met with two big smiles of two baby geese not much bigger than he was.

The two geese and the curious turtle grew up together and made the fondest memories. One day, the turtle overheard other people around the pond talking about a much bigger pond that was miles away. It had better weather, less dangerous predators, and more berries and grass to munch on. The turtle was instantly very curious and intrigued by this. He went to his geese friends immediately and told them all about it. They were quite hesitant at first but they had also heard a lot of good things about this place. The turtle finally convinced them and they got ready to set out the next day. However, when the turtle went to climb up on one of the geese backs, he realized that he didn't fit like he used to.

"Oh no! How am I going to go with you guys now?" The turtle sadly asked.

"Wait right there!" One of the geese said.

The geese quickly returned with a very strong stick and explained that the turtle need only hold onto the stick the whole way and they would carry him. The turtle thought this was a great idea and grabbed on.

When they were not far into their journey, a group of children down below started to jeer at the turtle. They said turtles shouldn't be in the sky, they should only be on the ground.

This made the turtle feel said inside but he was smart and knew not to open his mouth. Instead, he let the children jeer at him and continued on his journey.

After another days journey they made it to the beautiful new pond and they lived happily ever after.

Story
Jataka Tales
by  Ellen C. Babbitt

Week 11 Story - Three Friends

One day three friends were enjoying each others company by a pond in the forest. They were the deer, the turtle and the woodpecker. They had met long ago when they were each very little. There had been a very large fire in the forest that separated all three from their families, so they became their own little family and grew up together.

"It is such a nice day today." The turtle acknowledged.

"It really is!" The deer replied, "And look, I brought some berries that I picked earlier today."

The friends happily shared the treat and then went back to their homes for the night. But as the deer was walking back to his home, someone was watching him. A hunter who had wondered over to their area of the forest noticed the deer and wanted to catch him. The hunter decided to leave a trap on the path between the deer's home and the pond. The hunter set his trap and then went home for the night.

The next morning the deer rose to another beautiful day and decided he was going down to the pond to see how his friends were doing that morning. Just as he was about to get to the pond though the trap caught him and he was stuck. His friends were close by and heard his cries for help and were there instantly. Woodpecker quickly thought of a plan.

"Turtle, you use your strong teeth to cut through the trap. I will go to the hunters house and distract his for as long as I am able to."

The turtle quickly started to work on the tough leather attached to the tree and the woodpecker set off for the hunters house. Just as soon as the woodpecker had gotten to the hunters house, he noticed him leaving out the front door. He dove down with all of his strength and struck the hunters head. The hunter quickly went back inside and laid down for a while because he hurt so bad. After an hour or so had passed, he decided he would try and go out once more. The woodpecker was ready though and thought to himself, the hunter will probably try to exit out of the backdoor this time to escape me. The woodpecker was right and he caught the hunter just as he was leaving out the backdoor. The hunter went inside once more to lay down. After a couple more hours, the hunter set out. This time the bird flew far ahead to warn his friends that the hunter was on his way. Just as the hunter got close, the turtle chewed through the last piece and the deer pulled away and ran into the woods. The woodpecker flew up into the sky and got away. However, the turtle was so tired from all the hard work that he wasn't able to get away in time. The hunter picked him up and put him into a sack.
The deer was watching from close by and knew that he had to save his friend. The deer ran out in front of the hunter to distract him. The hunter hung the bag up on a tree and ran after the deer with his knife. While the deer was leading the hunter far into the forest, the woodpecker flew to the turtle.

"Are you okay, friend?" The woodpecker asked.

"Yes, I am just scared." The turtle said.

"Don't worry, we'll have you out of there in no time at all."

The woodpecker grabbed the strings of the bag and pulled up away from the tree. The bag was heavy but he didn't stop trying. Eventually he was able to lift it off of the branch and set it in a grassy patch down below. The turtle wiggled out quickly and was so happy to see his friend. Just then, the two of them heard a noise coming closer. The deer burst out of the trees with a smile on his face.

"He is so far away and very lost." The deer said proudly. "Thank you both for taking such good care of me. You are the best family I could have ever asked for."

The three happily went away to enjoy the rest of their long lives together.





Author's Note:

I really loved the original Jataka version of this story because I thought it was very sweet how well all three friends cared for each other. There wasn't much backstory on how the three became friends so I added a little to my story to help explain what brought them together. Also, the woodpecker doesn't do too much to help the turtle when he gets caught, the deer mostly does the saving but this time it was more like a team effort. Everything else in the story was pretty much the same

The Woodpecker, Turtle, and Deer
Source: Story
By: Ellen C. Babbitt

The Deer
Source: Jataka

Week 7 Story

          Bhima knew that he could never defeat Drona while Drona still believed Ashwatthaman was alive. He quickly came up with a plot to fool Drona into believing that Ashwatthaman was dead. Bhima went out and found an elephant named Ashwatthaman and he killed it, this way he could exclaim that Ashwatthaman was dead and fool Drona. Bhima went to where Drona was and shouted many times that Ashwatthaman was dead.

          However, Drona refused to believe this news immediately. Wisely, Drona went to Yudhishthira because he knew that he was incapable of telling anything but the truth. Once there, he asked Yudhishthira if it was true and he confirmed the news.

          "Ashwatthaman is dead!" Drona heard Yudhishthira say three times, but what he didn't hear was "the elephant" after each Ashwatthaman. Drona was fooled by this trick and was deeply saddened. His son was so much of his reason for living, he felt the energy leaving his body slowly the more he fell into his own thoughts. Drona was so distraught from the news that he completely forgot about his divine weapons, sat down in front of his own chariot, and laid down his weapons. Seizing this opportune moment, the Pandava general Dhrishtadyumna found his sword and started towards Drona. He had planned on defeating Drona in one to one combat. Strangely though, before he even had the chance the sky appeared to have two suns for a moment. These weren't able to stop the attack though and Dhrishtadyumna's sword came down on Drona and cut off his head. The moment it was cut, both Drona's head and body slowly disappeared into the Earth.

Ashwattaman the Elephant
Source: Wikipedia, Ashwatthama

Author's Note

          I think I liked this story so much because I like when people use trickery in these stories. It makes them so much more interesting even if it is kind of sad for whoever is getting tricked. I tried to stay true to the original story line so I didn't change any of the plot but instead wrote it in my own words instead. The only thing I changed was at the end I made Drona's head and body disappear back into the Earth because it seemed slightly less gruesome than his head being tossed back into the thick of things. 

PDE Mahabharata: Death of Drona

Source. Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists by Sister Nivedita (1914)

http://ouocblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/pde-mahabharata-death-of-drona.html

Week 4 Story: The Deer with the Crooked Tail

Rama knew that nothing would make Sita quite as happy as this golden deer and he decided that he had to go out to capture it. He set out in the morning, asking Lakshmana to watch over Sita in his absence. It hadn't been very long at all when Rama spotted the deer around a pond. He watched it for a moment because he was thoughtful of Lakshmana's warnings. The more he watched it, the more curious he became. This deer did not act like any other deer that Rama had seen around the forest before. Rama figured that maybe this was because it was a special golden deer that he was unfamiliar with. Rama stepped forward to approach the deer but right before he did he noticed the tail on the deer, was crooked. He wondered to himself, how could a perfect deer have such a striking feature out of place, for every other feature on the deer was immaculate. Rama was wise and he retreated once more to the bushes. After a few more moments had passed he noticed an aura around the deer grow larger and larger. Suddenly the light was consuming and it was all Rama could see and then it was gone. In the place of the golden deer was Maricha who had grown tired from the power the disguise was draining from him and switched back to his natural form for some reprieve.

Rama quietly retreated and went back to Lakshmana and Sita immediately to tell them what had happened.

"How foolish of me." Replied Sita as she quickly apologized to Lakshmana for brushing off all of his earlier warnings.

Lakshmana was only happy that everyone was safe. They decided that it was time to move to another location in case Maricha came around again with a new plan. So they traveled for three nights eventually resting upon an area nestled into the bottom of a mountain. The dense trees surrounding the cave created adequate shelter and disguise. Here they rested, preparing for the next inevitable encounter.

Author's Note:

This story was a spin off of the Golden Deer story from part B reading. I didn't like how Maricha kind of won this one. I wanted to create a story where none of it happened in the first place so that's where this one came from! Here, Rama catches on to Maricha's tricks (thanks to Lakshmana) and no one gets kidnapped.

The Golden Deer
http://ouocblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/pde-ramayana-golden-deer.html
Source. The prose portion comes from Indian Myth and Legend by Donald A. Mackenzie (1913)

The Golden Deer
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:19th-century_
Ramayana_manuscript,_Rama_Thagyin,_Myanmar_version,_Ravana_(Dathagiri)
_sends_Gambi_as_golden_deer_(Shwethamin)_to_deceive_Sita_(Thida).jpg

Week 2 Story

Long ago, there was a lengthy drought. This drought caused the nearly all of the ponds to dry out except for a few, one of which still held a great deal of fish. Not far at all was a much larger shaded lake, the fish could almost hop over it was so close. One day the crafty pelican had an idea, he decided he would tell the fish he was going to help them over to the lake by carrying them over in his beak. Almost all the fish eagerly accepted the offer, except a smaller fish who stayed towards the bottom of the water to listen to the crane speak. The smaller fish leaned over to his friend the crab and said,

"I don't trust this pelican, why ought he do anything for us when we offer nothing in return. This pelican has no charitable past."

"I think you are probably right", stated the crab, "but why don't we wait and see, we don't have many other options."

So the crab and the fish waited in the back of the group and watched as the pelican carried away the first fish. When the pelican came back and landed on the overhanging branch, the little fish thought he saw that the branch was hanging slightly closer to the water. The pelican carried two...three...four...finally on the fifth fish, the little fish watched as the pelican landed on the branch and it dipped just slightly into the water. But by then, the little fish already had created a plan.

The little fish swam the the front with his friend the crab and asked if they could be next.

"Of course!" exclaimed the pelican, who had grown quite tired of fish in his belly and was ready for a side snack of crab. "But how will I take you both together?"

"Well I'll just hold onto your neck!" said the crab. The pelican agreed quickly as he was hoping to finish dinner by sunset and away they went. But as soon as they saw the pelican moving away from the direction of the lake the crab tightened his grip.

"Crab, what are you doing? That's too tight!" exclaimed the pelican.

"Drop little fish in the water immediately and listen to me closely if you want to make it to tomorrow." The pelican obliged but the crab hardly loosened his grip. "I will stay here on your back and you will create a trench that leads from our pond to the lake. Only after it is finished and I watch water run through will I let go and allow you to live."

The pelican had no choice but to do as he was told. Each pile of dirt he dug from the Earth seemed to stretch his mouth larger and larger and he was able to carry away bigger piles of dirt each time he dug. By the second day with the help of a lengthy thunderstorm, water began to flow through the trench and by then the pelicans mouth had grown to be five time as large as before! All the remaining fish were able to swim over to the lake.

The crab released his hold on the pelican finally and warned that if he ever came around them again, he would not let him leave with his life. They lived many happy years in that pond.

a picture with a pelican and its large beak (large enough to dig a trench!)
Source: google images

Authors Note

I based my story on the story about the Crane and the Crab that we read earlier. I wanted a version of the story where at least a few more of the little fishies survived. Also, the crane/pelican survived in this story and learned his lesson! I changed the crane to a pelican because I wanted there to be some folklore behind why the pelican's beak is so big and it made it seem a little more realistic that it would be able to form a trench it two days.

The Cunning Crane and the Crab
The Giant Crab, and Other Tales from Old India by W. H. D. Rouse.https://sites.google.com/view/jatakas/crane-and-crab