The Fox and the Crow
Fox enters Grizzly's with a long face. He looks completely deflated
and sad.
"I need one of your best brews,
Grizzly. It's been a long day already." said Fox as he sat down at one
of the barstools.
"Of course, I'll getcha fixed right
up. Why such a long day? The sun hasn't even gone down," said Grizzly.
"Oh, it's these fables going around
again," said Fox. "If it's not about me being inconsiderate to the
stork, it's about me tricking crows into giving me their food."
"What'dya mean, Fox?" said Grizzly
as he set down a frosty glass of beer on the bar. Grizzly knew about
Fox inviting the stork to dinner. Aesop made him look bad, blaming him
for serving the long-beaked stork on a platter so the stork couldn't
eat the food. The truth is, Fox had just gotten imported platters and
wanted to use them for the first time. He didn't think twice about how
hard it might be to eat for a stork. Grizzly hadn't heard anything
about him and a crow. "You're gonna have to
explain this one, Fox..."
"Well, you know how Aesop has
always torn me apart, taking every little thing I do and stretching it
to make me the bad guy. Well, he's at it again! I don't know what I
ever did to that guy... It started when I was making my way home from a
hunt. I didn't end up catching anything, so I was going home to get
something to eat. Well, I saw the crow grab some cheese from a
restaurant nearby. So the cheese caught my attention, seeing as I was
so hungry. But then I noticed how the crow's wings were perfectly
combed, nice and shiny. I then noticed how
well he took care of himself. So, I told him how nice his feathers
looked. I know everyone likes a compliment every now and again. And
Grizzly, you know how
I love to hear the birds sing, don't you?"
Grizzly responded, "Oh yeah... you
have all the latest bird song CDs, right?"
"Yes, yes!" said Fox. "So I really
wanted to hear this crow sing, seeing as how he was such a beautiful
bird. So, after I told him what an amazingly beautiful bird he was, I
asked him to sing. And he did. It was lovely, it really was. But once
he started singing, the cheese fell right out of his mouth!"
"So, what'd ya do with the cheese?
Aren't you lactose intolerant?" questioned Grizzly.
"Well... yeah, I am lactose
intolerant. But I ate it! I was so hungry! I saw where he got it and
there was plenty more for him. There was no way for me to sneak into
the restaurant and steal cheese. The crow got so mad at me too! He flew
off without letting me explain. I wanted to hear him sing more than I
wanted that piece of cheese! It didn't even fill me up AND it gave me a
stomach ache! Little did I know, Aesop was standing right in the
distance, taking notes. I knew that he would twist the story to make me
the bad guy. And sure enough, he did! Look at the newspapers! I'm all
over them. There's no way I can show my face around town anytime soon.
They're going to taunt me and make me seem like some greedy fox, when
that's just not true!"
"Well you know you've got a place
to come until the people calm down, Fox," said Grizzly.
"Well thanks, Grizzly. I don't know
what I'd do without ya." Fox sat at the bar and put his head down and
moped for a few hours until another customer walked into the
bar...
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Author's Note: Originally, the story of the Fox and the Crow shows that
you shouldn't trust flatterers. In the original story, the fox flatters
the crow to get his piece of cheese. In my retelling, I explain how he
was misunderstood because of his love for bird songs. The fox tells the
story from his point of view instead of Aesop's point of view. He
explains why Aesop may have thought things went differently, but he
clears the story up through telling the story himself. He didn't want
the piece of cheese, he just wanted to hear the crow sing. He was
hungry, and that's why he ate the cheese. But that wasn't his intentIn
the original fable, you don't know where the story came from or why
Aesop wrote the story as he did, but in my version Aesop is an actual
character in the story, an eyewitness to what happened.
He becomes a villain type character by giving certain characters bad
reputations around the area of the woods. He is causing trouble by
assuming what is going on without double checking. Aesop is sneaky,
catching situations without those involved even realizing it. He can
almost be considered a bad news reporter-not checking his facts before
he publishes them. The original story has quotes from each character,
but in my retelling the fox is the storyteller and he explains
everything that happened in his own words.
Image Source: Flickr
"The Fox and the Crow" retold by Joseph Jacobs from Aesop's Fables
(1909). Website: Bartleby.com.