The
Hunter & His Wife
by Deidra Kelly
"The
hunter came out of it for the best, unlike the bear and wolf," the Fir
admitted to his
friends.
"His
wife did not come out for the best, but some would say she had it
coming..." the Pine
remarked as he began to recall the story.
---
There
lived a hunter whose only escape from his nagging and abusive
wife was to take his dogs far into the woods to hunt. He spent many
hours there, enjoying the sounds and sights of nature as his two dogs
kept him company.
One
day after a particularly nasty fight with his wife, he went to hunt
and found himself lacking a kill as the hours slipped by. He went into
deeper and deeper woods, fearing going back to his sour wife with
nothing to show for his trip.
He
noticed a flickering orange light as he stepped into a clearing; it
became apparent that the light was from a blazing fire whose heat
radiated and slapped the hunter's face. The fire was freestanding and
had no apparent purpose; strangely enough, when the hunter looked
closer, he saw a black snake curling around a piece of kindling in the
center of the flames.
"Come
here!" the snake cried. "Save me!"
Stunned,
the hunter held out his two-barreled gun close enough so that
the snake could slither on it and away from the fire.
"Thank
you, my kind friend. For your kindness, I will grant you the
knowledge to understand the language that beasts speak. However, tell
no one of your gift or you will die." With that, the grateful snake
slithered down the gun to the man's body and onto the forest floor,
leaving the hunter quite speechless with his dogs.
"I am
so tired, I am imagining things," the hunter told himself. "I
will sleep here tonight and try to regain my composure tomorrow." He
laid down to sleep, but found that the sound of his dogs conversing
with each other kept him awake.
"Today
was a good day," said the brown dog.
"It
was a day away from home, so it was a very good day," said the
white dog.
"Yes,
that hateful woman gave us only burnt crust to eat and poked us
with the hot poker while Master was out yesterday," the brown dog
recalled.
"So...it is true", the hunter
thought. "I can understand the beasts
now. I
will keep my wife's bad behavior in mind too." The hunter
finally
drifted off to sleep. The next morning, he caught a sack full of hares
and cheerfully headed home.
His
wife was standing in the doorway with her arms crossed when the
hunter returned home with his kill.
"Good
morning," he said in greeting.
"Good
morning indeed," she replied with a sour look on her face.
"My
wife, did you give my dogs good food to eat two days ago as I
requested?" he said as he stepped inside.
"Oh,
of course I did. I have them both meat and bread," she lied.
"Liar!
I know that you gave them burnt bread and tortured them with the
poker!" he spat as his wife looked upon him with vexation.
"How-how
did you know?" she asked.
"I'm
not telling you."
"Please,
tell me. I must know," she insisted.
"No,
no! I can't tell you or I will die," he informed her.
"No,
you won't, just tell me and only me," she persisted.
The
hunter figured there was only one way out now, and it was death. He
said his prayers to his saints and to God and lay down on the bench as
he prepared to tell his wife the truth.
Just
as he opened his mouth, a noisy clatter came from the yard, where
the rooster was fussing at his wives, the hens.
"You
will respect me and each other!" the rooster scolded as he chased
them. "I am not a fool like Master; I know how to make my wives respect
me. I keep all thirty of you in line and he cannot manage even one!"
The
hunter heard and understood every word the rooster shouted and
resolved to be a fool no longer.
"NO I
AM NOT TELLING YOU! And if you ask me ever again, I will beat you
within an inch of your life!" the hunter shouted with such a fury that
his wife never bothered him about it again and it remained to her
forever a mystery how the hunter knew what she did while he was gone.
----
"Well,
at least he got to keep his sanity," said the Fir.
"Yes, some are not so lucky as he..."
AUTHOR'S
NOTE:
I
chose to include this story because I thought it was different from any
fairy tale I'd read before. It had the same elements to it you can find
in a lot of sitcoms, a.k.a. the nagging wife and the "whipped" husband.
I
kept the essence of the story the same but I left out some parts, such
as the hunter conversing with the snake, to keep the story flowing.
Also, the original gave no explanation to why the snake was in the
fire, and I couldn't for the life of me think of a reason, so that's
another factor of why I kept the interaction with the snake to a
minimum. I also changed the ending; in the original, the hunter
actually does beat his wife within an inch of her life.
I really find that distasteful, even if she deserved it, so I just made
him frighten her instead of using actual violence. I also changed the
roosters speech a little bit; I wanted the emphasis to be on respect
instead of husband vs wife with the husband winning. I hope that the
reader enjoyed the rooster's speech as much as I did writing it.
Coverpage
"The Hunter & HIs Wife" by
Arthur Ransome from Old Peter's Russian Tales (1916). Web Source:
SurLaLune Fairy Tales
Image Information: Hunting Dogs. Web Source:
Wikimedia Commons
