Storytelling: Fantastic Mr. Fox

There was a lady named Mary. She was both kind and beautiful, and adored by all. She lived with her two brothers, Mark and Luke. Lady Mary had more suitors than she knew what to do with, but every time she would agree to marry someone they would disappear. That is until Mr. Fox came along. Lady Mary had met Mr. Fox at her father’s country house, so no one really knew much about him. What they did know was that he was certainly brave, surely rich, and that he was deeply loved by Lady Mary. So at last it was decided that they should be married. Lady Mary asked Mr. Fox where he thought they should live once they were married, he described to her his beautiful castle and where it was located. But oddly enough, didn’t invite her or her brothers to come see it.

A few days away from the wedding Lady Mary decided she wanted to find the house that he described. So when her brothers were gone, and Mr. Fox was away on business, she went out to search for it. After quite a bit of searching she at last found it. And when she came up to the gateway she saw written on it:

Be bold, be bold.

But as the gate was open, she went through it, and found no one there. So she went up to the doorway, and over it she found written:

Be bold, be bold, but not too bold.

She went on, till she came into the hall, and went up the stairs till she came to a door in the gallery, over which was written:

Be bold, be bold, but not too bold,
Lest that your heart's blood should run cold.

Lady Mary took a deep breath and thrust open the door and what do you think she saw? Why, dead bodies and skeletons stained with blood. There were children, women, and men all carved up and tortured to death. Lady Mary walked around and examined the bodies. As she took a closer look she noticed something, she recognized a lot of the male bodies. They were her suitors that had agreed to marry her, but then “disappeared.” She realized that Mr. Fox must have kidnapped them and killed them so that he could be the one to marry her.

Lady Mary thought it was high time to get out of that horrid place, and she closed the door, went through the gallery, and was just going down the stairs, and out of the hall, when who should she see through the window but Mr. Fox dragging a beautiful young lady along from the gateway to the door.

Lady Mary rushed downstairs, and hid herself behind a cask, as Mr. Fox came in with the poor unconscious young lady, Just as he got near Lady Mary, Mr. Fox saw a diamond ring glittering on the finger of the young lady he was dragging, and he tried to pull it off. But it would not come off, so Mr. Fox drew his sword, raised it, and brought it down upon the hand of the poor lady. The sword cut off the hand, which jumped up into the air, and fell right into Lady Mary's lap. Mr. Fox tried to look around for it, but gave up quickly, and continued to drag the lady’s body to the gallery. As soon as the coast was clear Lady Mary bolted out of the castle and ran home as fast as she could.

The next day happened to be the day that the marriage contract was to be signed, so there was a celebratory breakfast before it. Mr. Fox walked in and greeted Lady Mary and said, “My dear, you look quite pale this morning. Is everything alright?”

“Just a had some bad dreams last night,” Lady Mary replied. “Tell me about your dream my dear,” said Mr. Fox.

“Well I dreamed that I found your castle in the woods. And on the gateway written was Be Bold, Be Bold,” said Lady Mary.

“But it is not so, nor it was not so,” said Mr. Fox.

“And when I came to the doorway, over it was written: Be bold, be bold, but not too bold.”

“It is not so, nor it was not so, “said Mr. Fox.

“And then I went upstairs, and came to a gallery, at the end of which was a door, on which was written:”

Be bold, be bold, but not too bold,
Lest that your heart's blood should run cold.

“It is not so, nor it was not so,” said Mr. Fox.

“And the I opened the door, and the room was filled with bodies and skeletons of all my past suitors, all stained with their blood.”

“It is not so, nor it was not so. And God forbid it should be so,” said Mr. Fox.

“I then rushed down the gallery, and just as I was going down the stairs I saw you, Mr. Fox, coming up to the hall door, dragging a poor young lady.”

“It is not so, nor it was not so. And God forbid it should be so,” said Mr. Fox.

“I rushed downstairs, just in time to hide myself behind a cask, when you came in. And, as you passed me, I saw you try and get off her diamond ring. When you could not, that you got out with your sword and hacked off the poor lady's hand to get the ring.”

“It is not so, nor it was not so. And God forbid it should be so,” said Mr. Fox, and was going to say something else as he rose from his seat, when Lady Mary cried out:

“But it is so, and it was so. Here's hand and ring I have to show,” and pulled out the lady's hand from her dress, and pointed it straight at Mr. Fox.

At once her brothers and her friends drew their swords and cut Mr. Fox into a thousand pieces.

Authors Note: For this story I kept a lot of it the same from the original. I really enjoyed the original story and didn’t really want to change much. But as I was reading through the one thing that I was curious about was why Mr. Fox was killing these people. So in my version I made the main reason he killed people to be so that he could be the one to marry Lady Mary.

Source: EnglishTales, Joseph Jacobs, Mr. Fox

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Storytelling: Grendel the not so terrible

Some say he’s as big as a mountain. Some say he can devour a dozen men in just one bite. They call him the scourge of the night. His name is Grendel, and he will haunt your dreams and put your town into utter chaos. These are some of the stories they tell about the creature Grendel, although no one really knows the truth. No one has ever actually seen the creature Grendel and lived, but they have seen the carnage that he has caused. The story of Grendel started out as an old urban legend, much like the boogie man or killer clowns. But for the people of Heorot, they found out the hard way that Grendel is very real. For over 12 years Grendel had cursed the town of Heorot. He would cast a spell upon the town that would put them all asleep, he would then steal people right out of their beds and devour them. Like I said before no one had ever seen the creature Grendel and lived to tell the tale, but every night someone new from the town would disappear and the only logical explanation was that it was Grendel. Many people of Heorot tried to leave, but never could cross into the next town without being hunted down by Grendel. The town was surely doomed to be forever cursed by this creature, that is until the day Beowulf arrived.

Beowulf was a fierce warrior of Geatsland, who had decided to come to Heorot to rid them of the terrible monster Grendel. Beowulf was considered to be a great warrior by his people, but was untested in battle. To prove to his people that he truly was a great warrior, he planned to slay the monster Grendel that had cursed the town of Heorot. Beowulf arrived at Heorot with fourteen of his finest men, not truly aware of the deadly task that they had gotten themselves into. The people of Heorot had heard of Beowulf and his brave men and were sure that they would save them from Grendel. They threw the warriors a great feast to honor them, and then left them in the Great Hall of the village to wait for the dreaded Grendel.

Beowulf and his men set up their defenses and prepare for the long night they had ahead of them. As the night rolled on the men, one by one, slowly started drifting off into a deep sleep. Beowulf knew that this must be the magic of Grendel, and resisted the urge to fall asleep by burning himself with a candle. It was then that Beowulf turned and realized that the massive door of the Great Hall had started creaking open, and he knew that Grendel was upon him. Beowulf drew and sword and prepared for battle, but what happened next caught him completely off guard.

Standing at the door of the Great Hall was not a monster as big as a mountain, nor terrifying enough to make you leave Heorot. What stood there was a troll like creature the size of a chiwawa. “You’re the monster Grendel?” said Beowulf in utter disbelief. Grendel was shocked that the warrior had not been effected by his spell, but responded “Yes, I am Grendel. The scourge of the night. Prepare to die.” Beowulf sat there in silence for a minute and then started laughing. Once he finally gathered himself he sheathed his sword, walked over to the “terrifying” Grendel, and started choking the creature. Grendel tried to fight back, but Beowulf was too strong and he died. Beowulf sat there, filled with joy that he had finally rid this town of Grendel. But little did Beowulf know Grendel was not only thing that had been cursing the town, his mother was a part of it too. Grendel was more or less just a pawn that was sent in first to make everyone fall asleep. Then Grendel’s mother, who was actually giant and terrifying, would come in and devour the townspeople. So as Beowulf sat there basking in glory, a giant shadowing figured suddenly swooped him off his feet. But what happens next is a story for another time.

Authors note: I kept fairly to the original story while writing this. Grendel was a giant monster that cursed the town of Heorot for 12 year until Beowulf came and killed Grendel by ripping his arm clean off him. Grendel's mother, who was much more terrifying than Grendel, found this out and started killing Beowulf's men. So Beowulf set out to end the creature and rid Heorot of these monsters once and for all. For my story I focused on just the Grendel aspect because it would take too long to talk about both. But I decided to make Grendel to be this terrifying myth that had everyone feared, when in reality he was just a puny little thing that was able to put people to sleep so that his mom could eat them. 

Bibliography: The Story of Beowulf- by Stafford Riggs

Grendel

Storytelling: The Wolf man and his Two Wives

A long time ago there was a man named Guillermo who had two wives. Though they were married, Guillermo’s wives did not love him, or even like him for that matter. They had all wed through an arranged marriage, to which the wives were very displeased with. Because of their displeasure they were not good wives to Guillermo. He would be out hunting all day and when he would return nothing would be done around the house. No food made, no cleaning had been done, and no wives in sight. They were much younger than Guillermo, so they would always be out partying and having relations while Guillermo did all the work. When the wives did finally return home they would always get chewed out by Guillermo. This became such a regular thing that Guillermo decided the only way to teach his wives to be good was to move away from the big village, where they would all be alone. So he packed up everything and moved them off on the prairie and camped at the foot of a high butte.

Every evening about sundown the man used to climb up to the top of this butte and sit there and look all over the country to see where the buffalo were feeding and and wonder if his wives would ever be good to him. On top of the hill there was a buffalo skull, on which he used to sit.

One day one of the women said to the other, "It is very lonely here; we have no one to talk with or to visit."

"Let us kill our husband," said the other; "then we can go back to our relations and have a good time."

Early next morning the man set out to hunt and, as soon as he was out of sight, his wives went up on top of the butte where he used to sit. There they dug a deep hole and covered it over with light sticks and grass and dirt, so that it looked like the other soil near by, and placed the buffalo skull on the sticks which covered the hole.

The wives waited and watched for Guillermo to return, and finally they saw him coming over the hill carrying all the meat he had killed. Guillermo came home, dropped off the meat, and climbed up his butte to sit on the buffalo skull like he had always done. But this time when he went to go sit on the buffalo skull, the sticks broke and he fell into a hole. Once Guillermo had fallen in the hole, the wives packed up all their belongings and made their way to the big camp, crying and mourning over the death of Guillermo. They told the people of the village that he had been gone for days on a hunting trip and that he had not returned, so they assumed that he was dead.

Now Guillermo didn’t actually die, but was stuck in the pit and was in an unbearable amount of pain. Guillermo thought that he would surely die here. A pack of wolves was hunting nearby and saw Guillermo stuck in the pit. Guillermo assumed that they would just eat him, but to his surprise the wolves pulled him out of the pit and brought him to their den. They brought him to the leader of the pack that had special healing powers and he brought Guillermo back to full health. On top of healing him the pack leader turned Guillermo’s head and hands to that of a wolf, but left the rest of his body unchanged.

Guillermo joined the pack helped the wolves steal meat from the big camp. The wolves normally couldn’t get near the meat because of the villager’s traps, but with Guillermo, the man wolf, they could get to the meat easily. The villagers discovered that the traps kept getting pulled and knew they must put a stop to whatever it was. That night Guillermo and the wolves set out like usual to steal meat, and like always Guillermo went first to unhook all the traps. But this time while he was unhooking the traps, the villagers jumped out and surrounded him. They caught him with ropes and brought him to the light of the fire, and at once they knew who it was.

“Guillermo it is you, we thought you had died?” said the villagers. Guillermo explained to the villagers what his wives had done and how the wolves had saved him. This made the villagers angry and they knew that the wives would need to be punished. Rather than killing the wives, the villagers sentenced them to exile to where they would have to live the remainder of their days alone, fending for themselves. The wives were never heard from again.

The wolf man

Bibligography: The Wolf Man- Blackfoot Storybook, Grinnell

Author's Note: I actually made my story pretty close to the original. Some of the things that I changed was about why the wives tried to kill the man, because in the story they didnt elaborate on it very well. I also changed the punishment that the wives had for trying to kill the man, because in the original it doesnt really specify. Also as you already noticed from reading I named the main character Guillermo because he didnt have a name before.