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| This motif of an eagle fighting a snake shows the eagle which is the light defeating the snake which is the darkness Source: (deviantart) License: (creativecommons) Changes:(resized image) |
One day an eagle came across a snake that had just
engorged himself on a juice, plump
mouse.
“How are you faring?”
asked the eagle.
“Very well,” replied the snake, “I have dined on the most
scrumptious of mice and I would be most obliged if you would give me a lift to
the mountain over yonder.”
The eagle realized that the journey to the mountain would be
arduous. As he was a noble and honorable
eagle, he decided to perform a good deed for another denizen of the animal
kingdom. Therefore, he swooped down and
clasped the snake in his claws.
As the snake was carried to the mountain, he looked at the
well-preened feathers of the eagle and thought to himself, “This eagle is very
pleasant to look at and he has a healthy figure. I think I shall devour him once we arrive at
the mountain.”
“Once again I must offer my thanks,” said the snake hoping
to mislead the eagle.
“It is no trouble,” said the eagle, “one such as I must
extend our services to those in need. Furthermore,
I have family on the mountain and it shall be a blessing to see them once
again. For I have not seen my family for
three winters.”
As they neared the mountain the eagle asked, “where should I
set you down?”
“On the far side of the mountain, next to stream, at the tree
line” replied the snake.
The snake prepared himself to attack the eagle. When they arrived at their destination, the
snake quickly wrapped himself around the eagle but his head was too close to
the claws of the eagle to strike the eagle with his fangs.
“Why are you doing such a thing?” exclaimed the eagle.
“You shall make an excellent snack for me,” replied the
snake.
So the eagle began a fight for survival as the noose of the
snake crept closer and closer. As the
snake was about to obtain his victory, he was suddenly wrested from the eagle
by a human hunter.
“Curses,” thought the snake.
So he bared his fangs at the human hunter. After missing several strikes at the hunter,
he struck the hunter’s water skin and injected his venom.
Seeing the proximity of the snake, the hunter swung down a
fatal blow to the snake.
As the snake crept off to die, the snake thought to himself,
“we shall see who has the last laugh.”
The eagle, thankful of the hunter’s valiant effort, saw what
the snake had down and flew into the air to wait for a chance to retrieve the
water skin. The exhilarated hunter
walked over the stream to fill his water skin with the fresh mountain
water. After he had filled his water
skin, and was lifting it his mouth to cleanse his parched throat, the eagle seeing
his opportunity, dove and snatched the water skin from the hunter’s hand. The eagle then flew off to dispose of the
water skin the snake had tainted.
Authors Note:
This
story is based off the Aesop Fable "The Serpent and the Eagle."
In the story, a snake attacks an eagle and as the eagle was gasping for
breath, a countryman came and assisted the eagle. Then the snake, who could
not strike the countryman, struck the countryman's drinking horn. As the
countryman was about to drink from the horn, the eagle came and snatched the
horn away saving the countryman. I followed the base outline of the story
and focused on the character development of the snake and the eagle. I
gave the eagle an honourable character and the snake trickster character, which
I used to advance the story. The countryman
is a hunter in my version but his role is the same and he performs the same
actions. I felt that focusing too much
on the hunter would detract from the story between the snake and the
eagle. The image was chosen because I
felt that it was an accurate representation of the events that had occurred in
the story. The reason that the story was
chosen was that I felt that this story shows of the age-old problem of good
people being kind and be backstabbed. In
this instance, however a good Samaritan comes along and rescues the eagle from
his plight.
Bibliography:
Book: The Æsop for Children With pictures by Milo WinterAuthor: Æsop
Year Published: December 2, 2006
I like this story a lot. Sadly, I think there are a lot of people out there who would be classified as the snake in the story. However, it is enlightening to think about two complete strangers going out of their way to help each other. I like how you built up the personas of the eagle and the snake, I think that made the story more interesting.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the adjectives you used through out the whole story! they really made your story pop. I enjoyed reading your story, but like Kurtis mention above it is sad to see that there are people that do in fact posses the qualities of the snake. This idea of a trickster character is very powerful and is used in many different cultures. I’m glad to hear that the sneaky snake was not able to get away with his mischievous plans.
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