Week 10 Storytelling: Kingdom Split

                Once upon a time, there were two brothers who were both trying to reign over a kingdom.  One of the brothers, Chase, was older and more selfish but the younger brother, Sam, was more reserved but much more caring.  One day, Chase decided that he wanted to make a giant lake in his yard so he ordered his workers to go through the village and take everyone’s water from their wells and kitchens in order for him to have a giant lake to go wake-boarding on.  Although it seemed like a fun idea, Sam knew that the people of his kingdom needed water to stay hydrated and survive.  Thus, he tried to persuade his brother to make it a community lake so all could come and drink from it or to make his lake more of a pool so that it didn’t require as much water.  Chase refused and ordered his servants to make the lake twice as large.  Thus, Sam ordered his own servants every night to return most of the water that had been confiscated.  Every morning, when Chase woke up to go to the lake, he didn’t remember exactly how much water there was originally and just assumed there wasn’t much water to begin with.  Thus, the kingdom survived based off of Sam’s plan.

Lake Macquarie

Source:  Wikipedia

                A few months later, Chase decided that he wished for there to be 100 puppies in his castle so he ordered his servants to go and confiscate enough dogs to satisfy his need for cuddles.  Thus, the servants went around the kingdom and collected everyone’s puppies leaving children very upset and parents disgruntled.  Sam heard that the kingdom was very upset over losing some of their favorite pets and tried to reason with his brother.  Sam pointed out that puppies are hard to potty-train and if they aren’t given enough attention, can become ill-behaved dogs.  Again, Chase refused to listen to his brother and hoarded all the puppies in his castle for weeks.  Then, Sam came up with a plan.  He decided to put the cow manure all over the Chase’s favorite rug in the castle and thinking it was from the puppies, Chase would want them all gone and the puppies could return to their original owners.  Thus, Sam asked a townspeople who particularly wanted their puppies back to do the honor and the next morning, all of the puppies were freed and the kingdom was happy once again. 

Author’s Note:  This story is loosely based off of the Grizzly Bear and Coyote story written by Shuswap.  The story is a part of the British North America unit and is from Myths and Legends of British North America by Katharine Berry Judson and was published in 1917.  My story is pretty different in terms of setting and characters from the original story, but the storyline remained the same.  In the original story, a grizzly bear wanted darkness and winter for most, if not all, of the year and the coyote knew that wouldn’t be good so he continually countered the grizzly bear to save life on earth.