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Week 5 Story: Elephant's Revenge

 Elephant's Revenge

    A snake heard the loud footsteps of an elephant walking towards him. He became excited because he had been waiting for this moment for days now. A mother elephant was venturing to gather some food and stopped by her usual 'itching tree'. Every couple of days she would use the tree to itch her back where pesky flies and bugs would bite her. Although she would shake the tree, and the animals in it, no damage ever resulted from it as she was careful not to harm the residents that lived there. However, the snake was evil and knew he could use her size and actions to cover up his own agenda. When she began to shake the tree, the snake slid over to a bird's nest and wacked the nest with his tail. This caused all the eggs to fall out and smack against the ground. The parent birds were just arriving back to the nest when they saw the eggs fall. The snake slivered away before he was spotted and the birds automatically assumed it was the elephant's itching that caused the eggs to drop. The elephant, unaware of what happened, continued on her way to gather food. Later that night, the snake quickly descended to the base of the tree and ate all the eggs- a successful plan that had been. The bird's gathered many friends and told them all about the incident and how it was the elephant who killed their children. All the animals decided they needed to act or else the elephant may strike their tree next. The following day, they pecked at the elephant's eyes and ears until she was blind and deaf. She screamed for help but was no where near her family. Not knowing the reason for the attack, she died sad and alone unable to find any food or the way back to her home. 
    The elephant's family immediately went searching for her when she did not arrive back on time. After days of looking, they found her body beaten in a hole. Able to see the bird's beak imprints on her body- the herd stormed and ask every animal until they knew who the murderers were. Arriving at the tree of the birds, they yelled until they were met by the parent birds. After the birds explained their situation, the elephants didn't believe for one bit that their mother was guilty. Although the elephants wanted to trample the entire tree and kill the inhabitants, they were too kind to do so. Instead, they forced all the animals involved in the attack to leave the area and never return. The birds, being out-numbered and out-sized, reluctantly agreed. Although the snake was never caught, there was no food without the bird's eggs, so he followed the birds to their new home. He attempted the same plan later on when another large animal rubbed against their new tree, however this time he was caught. In the end, he ended up paying the ultimate price and the birds were never allowed to return to their homeland.

[Elephant Herd. Image Information.]

Author's Note

This story is derived from 'The Frog, the Bee, and the Bird, who Killed the Elephant'. That story depicts the elephant as a murderer for rubbing against a tree and accidentally knocking over some bird eggs. Three animals get back at the elephant by torturing her and eventually killing her. I wanted to change the story so the elephant was wrongly accused, and the elephant's herd are the one's taking revenge. I hope you enjoyed it!

Bibliography

Nakhshabi, Ziya'al-Din. The Frog, the Bee, and the Bird, who Killed the Elephant. Tales of a Parrot 1801. Link
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Comments

  1. Emma KempSeptember 27, 2020 at 1:47 PM

    Hey Katie! I liked reading your adaptation of the story! I normally don't read stories or books that have animals as the characters, so this was definitely something new and interesting for me. I thought the story overall was very metaphorical and illustrative, holding a lot of common life lesson themes throughout it. The idea that someone else had to pay for the actions of another is a very applicable life lesson, so seeing that demonstrated through animals gave it an interesting twist! The only things I noticed that distracted from the story were some very minor grammatical errors. This class has made me realize that I'm not as great at writing as I thought I was, so I am definitely also guilty of making a couple mistakes here and there! Overall though, I thought your adaptation of the story was really cool and an easy read. Great job this week!

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  2. Snail Mail RiotSeptember 27, 2020 at 11:41 PM

    I really liked your story, Katie :) It did make me sad for the elephant, but it also made me happy that the snake got what it deserved in the end. I liked your descriptions, and the emotion translated pretty well! Elephants are definitely very kind animals, so I could definitely believe they wouldn't cause harm even if they were incredibly mad. I wonder how the birds felt after they realized their horrible, awful mistake. I think if your characters were actors, Mama Elephant would maybe be a little salty she had to be killed off, but I think would ultimately understand that the lessons of the story would definitely need her demise to happen in order to be effective. One thing I noticed is the ending felt a little rushed in comparison with the rest of the story. I really feel that in my stories because I could write for waaay longer than 1k words! I know you can definitely get the hang of it though by practicing pacing in a rough draft before writing the story out (just a recommendation though!). Overall, this week's story was really good!

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  3. Lumingo Lubobo (Syntiche)October 12, 2020 at 11:06 AM

    Hi Katie,
    I really liked reading your story. It's very well thought and emotional. I was sad for the mother elephant's death but i was happy that at the end the snake got caught. This story shows that when can do bad to people but one day you will get caught. I wonder how the birds felt after realizing their mistake. Overall, i enjoyed your story!

    ReplyDelete

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