Then a small group of grouse birds were walking on the side of a pond. Together they looked as if they were going to go for a little swim. The rabbit had a good idea.
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| Spruce Grouse: Wikipedia |
He hopped over to the group and grouse and introduced himself.
"Good afternoon!" said the rabbit. "
"Hello! We are the grouse pack, we are just about to go for a swim." Said the head grouse.
"Oh, I would join you, but I'm not a good swimmer. Would you guys like to go back to my house and play?" Asked the rabbit.
"Well we kinda wanted to go for a swim, but you seem nice, so sure! We love playing with new friends." Said the head grouse.
Together, the group of grouse birds and the rabbit went off to the rabbit's place. As they arrived they greeted the rabbit's Grandmother.
"Good afternoon!" they all said together.
As they went into the home, the grandmother grabbed a bag near the a table and snatched up all the grouse birds.
"You see rabbit, we need these birds for dinner. We simply cannot be friends with our food, we must eat them at once." said the Grandmother.
The rabbit began to cry over the snatching of his friends. The Grandmother took the birds away and the rabbit never saw them again. To this day, we still don't know exactly what Grandmother did with rabbit's friends.
Author's note:
The Rabbit and Grouse Girls
Myths and Legends of the Sioux by Marie McLaughlin (1916)
In the original story, the Rabbit captures the grouse girls and convinced them to go into his bag. He brought them home to his grandmother. When the Rabbit went out to get some sticks, the grouse girls convinced the grandmother to let them go. However, all of them escaped but just one. In my retelling I decided to make the Rabbit and the grouse group friends and having the grouse birds go off to the Rabbit's place to play. However once everyone got to the house, the grouse birds were captured by the grandmother.
Hey Julianna! I think that its a really interesting narrative tool to shift character's motives or allegiances, like you did in this story. I liked all the dialogue and how it flowed. I think that you really made the folk tale your own and changed enough that the core was still there, but your voice also came through.
ReplyDeleteHey Julianna! I liked your story a lot. I like how innocent the grouse are. They went along because they thought the rabbit was a nice guy. Little did they know, the grandmother was going to put them in a bag and eat them later. I also thought it was funny that the rabbit had no intentions of eating birds, he just wanted to be friends.
ReplyDeleteHi JJ!
ReplyDeleteI liked your retelling of this story and how you chose to make the younger rabbit more innocent. I think it was interesting that it was the grandmother rabbit that captured the grouse this time instead. The poor grouse, they never saw any of it coming! I like how the story part was written in a different style than when the characters were speaking, It helped define those as different parts for me! Great job.
I've not seen many people shift stories to have 'worse' outcomes than the original, so that's interesting to see. I like the change, where instead of the Rabbit being the kidnapper, his grandmother is. It feels a lot like an "older generation vs younger generation" type of argument - the rabbit just wants to befriend the grouse, while his grandmother refuses to see them as anything but food.
ReplyDelete