Week 14 Story: A Soft Rumble

The crane and the crab: Wikimedia commons

      It started softly as a silent rumble that shook the earth. The rumble slowly grew louder and off in the distance a large mass of animals was moving through fields of grass and grain and wheat. As the rumbling grew louder, the animals could be made out. They were deer that were running from a chariot controlled by a King. The King shouted and threw spears as the deer ran. The deer trampled anything in their path. As the deer came and went, one of the villagers watching spoke and said, "We must do something about this." Other villagers nodded in agreement because it was their land the deer were trampling over. "We cannot do anything about the King," another villager chimed in. It was sad; The villagers had a good relationship with the deer until the King started hunting them. However, it was their lively hood at stake and they could not risk their lively hood for an animal. 

     When this first started happening, the villagers tried to reason with the King. "We can bring them into the forest near the kingdom," they said. However, no matter what they offered, the King seemed to always refuse. The villagers always assumed that he got more joy out of making their lives more difficult anyway. Without any other option, the villagers met. "We must hunt the deer ourselves before the deer ruin our land," they said. After a long deliberation, the villagers had a plan. They would let the King tire the deer out at the beginning of the day during his hunt. When the King finished with his hunt, the Villagers would then go out and slaughter the deer themselves. It brought a lot of pain to the villagers, but it had to be done. The next day; they began to kill the deer. 

     The King left his hunt in the early afternoon, and just when he was out of sight, the villagers closed in on the deer. Unfortunately for the deer, there was nowhere for them to escape, and the deer fell from the arrows and spears. After an hour, the villagers left and deer limped away. The next day, the King came back again and noticed a smaller herd. He thought nothing of it and still continued his hunt. However, this time as the villagers closed in, the two golden deer stood gleaming in the middle of the circle. They shouted, "Why must you do this" as the villagers closed in and the villagers stopped. They were entranced by the deer's beauty and quickly understood why they needed to stop. They were sacrificing grain and wheat over the lives of animals, and it was then and there both parties came up with a plan. The deer would leave and never return and the villagers would act completely surprised there are no more deer. That evening the deer left and the villagers nor the King ever saw them again. 

Authors note: 

This story is based off of the Jataka Story Banyan. In the original story, the villagers pushed the deer into the King's forest so the deer did not get hunted on their land anymore. I wanted to change that part of the story to make it more creative. The golden deer negotiate with the King in the original story instead of the villagers. 

Bibliography: 

• Title: Twenty Jataka Tales
• Author: Noor Inayat 
• Source: Babel