Week 6 Story: The Kind Crane
There once was a young, kind crane who possessed wisdom beyond her years and treated all beings with compassion. One day, she came upon a tiger writhing in agony; his face and throat were swollen, and he looked skinny with hunger. The kind crane flew down, eager to help, and asked, "My dear friend, what's wrong? What can I do to stop your pain?" The tiger opened his mouth in response, groaning as he did so, to reveal a large bone wedged in his throat. Immediately, the kind crane bravely dived into his mouth and removed the bone with his beak.
The kind crane and the tiger were, thus, friends and companions. On one of their journeys, they encountered another crane, but this one was not kind; instead, he was a cruel crane. The friends watched as he tricked fish into letting him carry them from an old, drying pond to a new pond, claiming that he was taking them to safety. Each time he reached the second pond, he threw the fish on the ground next to the water and ate them.
"We have to stop him!" screeched the kind crane, "He cannot get away with tricking these fish just so he can cruelly kill them." So the kind crane and the tiger approached the cruel crane, bearing food with them to entice the cruel crane to stop attacking the innocent fish. The cruel crane, seeing the food the friends carried, quickly dropped his next victim and slyly asked, "You carry much food, you must be tired from all that extra weight. Would you care to lighten your burden?""Only if you swear to leave these fish alone for eternity," growled the tiger fiercely.
So the cruel crane made off with his bounty, and the kind crane and her tiger friend finished the job he was supposed to start; and they carried all the remaining fish to their new pond and, thus, to safety.
Author's Note: I adapted this story from two tales from the Indian Fairy Tales selection: "The Lion and the Crane" and "The Cruel Crane Outwitted." The first two paragraphs of my rendition follow along with the original fairly closely, except in the end, they become friends. In contrast, in the original, the lion refuses to become friends with the crane, claiming that by not eating the crane, he had given enough repayment. The second half of my tale includes aspects of the original (a cruel crane tricks fish and eats them) but has a happier ending (the kind crane and the tiger stop the cruel crane and save the fish).
Bibliography: Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs
Hi Katie!
ReplyDeleteI really liked this story so much! I'm super big on being kind to anyone you meet so I really loved the character of the kind crane. You should've seen my reaction to the mean crane maliciously tricking and killing the fish after promising to help them. My eyes went wide and I pulled my computer closer secretly hoping the tiger would eat the mean crane. I was hooked from being to end for sure! This was so awesome Katie! Keep up the good work!
Hi Katie :)
ReplyDeleteI really loved your story. I was afraid the tiger would try to immediately eat the kind crane but was delighted when they became friends instead. Your story was easy to read and follow. It flowed very well, and I found myself wondering where the rest of it was as I didn't want it to stop!
The only things I would advise are keeping pronouns consistent (you refer to the kind crane as he at the end of the first paragraph), remember to separate different characters' dialogues into separate paragraphs, break up some of your run-on sentences, and maybe limit your use of semi-colons.
I've taken a shine to ellipses, so take that last comment about limiting semi-colon with a grain of salt!
Like I said earlier though, your story was a wonderful read, and I really liked it. You did a great job!
Hi Katie! Great work on this story. I love your idea of combining two different folk tales. You executed this brilliantly, and they flowed really well together. I was a bit worried for the crane in the first part of the story. I was concerned the tiger may have been a tricky one--but it was cool to see them team up. This story even had a happy ending--I liked that the two worked together to help these fish. Fantastic story!
ReplyDeleteHi Katie! At first when reading about the tiger, I was afraid would try to hurt the crane! Usually tigers in story are seemed to be frightening and aggressive, but I love how in this story the crane and the tiger become friends to help the fish! I think that the story was great, however the grammar could be changed a little bit! I usually run my stories through grammarly (we get it free through OU!) and that could help you if you are interested!
ReplyDeleteHi Katie! This is a really interesting story you have chosen! It may just be me but I think there is a lot we can learn from a story like this. That is probably why they used it as a story for their culture but nonetheless I think it has very good points. I enjoyed how you wrote the story with detail but not enough that it bogged down the rest of the story!
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