3 Fables
I’ve been reading a lot of Aesop’s fables recently. For those who are unfamiliar, Aesop was a slave in ancient Greece, who was credited with writing many fables. Some more popular ones include The Tortoise and The Hare and The Boy Who Cried Wolf. According to Britannica, a fable is a “narrative form, usually featuring animals that behave and speak as human beings, told in order to highlight human follies and weaknesses. A moral—or lesson for behavior—is woven into the story and often explicitly formulated at the end.”
A few weeks ago, I was crafting a music playlist to develop inspiration for one of my Dungeons and Dragons characters and rediscovered the song “Nellie” by Dr. Dog. In the song, there’s a reference to Aesop’s Fables, and I decided then and there that my character would write her own. Her story takes place in a old Western setting, so here are three of my own fables inspired by Aesop’s style:
The Snake and The Horse
Once upon a time there was a beautiful horse with a glorious mane and show-winning teeth. It was trotting home through the desert one day, when it came across a snake with the colors of poison on its back. The horse reared back in surprise and fear, but the snake called up to him.
“Please, Horse! Do not judge me so quickly. For I am just a lonely snake with no friends and nowhere to call home.”
The horse felt shame for he did judge the snake with little thought, and with pity for the creature, he replied: “I am sorry, Snake. You are welcome to return with me to my stable. With me, you may find a friend and a home, at least for the night.”
So the snake followed the horse back to its stable, where they frolicked in the hay and shared stories of their lives, but when it came time for sleep, the snake lunged at the horse’s leg, fangs sinking deep into its skin and venom pulsing through its veins.
The horse cried down to the snake: “Why would you do this? I thought you were just a lonely snake with no friends and no home.”
“I was,” replied the snake. “But then you gave me a friend, and you gave me a home. Now, I am just a snake with the colors of poison on its back.”
The Tumbleweed
There once was a tumbleweed. It was light and followed the wind, but the tumbleweed had dreams. It yearned to one day see the ocean. It dreamed of the waves and what the water might feel like on its brittle, dead twigs. It dreamed of sailing across the sea like a boat and making friends with the fish. But the tumbleweed always followed the wind, and the wind blew it across the desert and sand, where it gathered the twigs of all the scattered tumbleweeds that had come before it. In time, the tumbleweed became weighed down to where it could not follow the wind anymore, and it settled itself between the dunes of the sand, never seeing the ocean.
The Chicken and The Crow
Once upon a time, in a little farm, there was a chicken. The chicken stayed in its pen, laid eggs for its farmer to take, and fed on the seed that littered the ground. Although the chicken had wings, it could not fly, so it simply watched all the other birds soar overhead.
One day, a crow came to visit, and the chicken asked the crow what it saw. The crow shared tales of its adventures across the desert and coast. It spoke of seeing many men accompanying large wagons filled with glinting jewels.
The chicken was fascinated and asked the crow if they might see such a jewel. The crow bobbed its head, and in exchange for some chicken feed, flew off into the sky. When the crow returned, it held in its talons a shiny, clear jewel. The chicken fluffed its feathers and gawked in awe. It was a strange and beautiful thing. The chicken thanked the crow for bringing it to the chicken’s pen and tucked it safely among its eggs.
When the chicken grew old and the butcher came to slaughter, the farmer did attest: “You cannot kill that chicken, for it once laid a diamond egg, and I hope it might one day lay more.”