Week 4 Storytelling: Good Night, Tommy

It had been an exciting day at the zoo and Tommy wanted to do everything except go to sleep. His mother, on the other hand, was exhausted from the long day and wanted nothing more than for her rambunctious eight-year-old to go to sleep. So she corralled him into his room, helped him put on his dinosaur pajamas, herded him into his bed, and tucked his wiggling body into the sheets. With her son still squirming in his bed she looked down at him and, in a soft motherly voice, she said, “How about I tell you a bedtime story, Tommy?” With enthralled excitement, Tommy exclaimed, “YES!!” So the mother sat on the edge of the bed and began her story…

Winter herding in the American West (Source)

Once upon a time there was a group of cowboys who were starting a long journey herding their cattle from their ranch in Texas all the way up to a place in Wyoming. The cowboys would ride their horses all day and then stop and make camp to rest and eat at night. Now these cowboys had been traveling for several days and were beginning to enter territories that they had never seen before. One night a few of the cowboys became spooked and were afraid to continue their journey.

“I’m scared, y’all,” said Joe.

“Yeah! What if we ain’t gonna make it ta Wyomin'?” exclaimed Johnny.

Slim realized that they were growing more and more frightened by the minute. He looked around at the other cowboys and, in a friendly voice, said, “Why don’t y’all come on over here ‘round this campfire and I’ll tell y’all a story?” So they did as he asked and Slim began his story, “Alright, this is this story of Wren and the Rattlesnake…”

Rattlesnake (Source)

A long time ago, in a desert just like this, there was a little bird named Wren. Wren and his pals lived with other birds just like them in a part of the desert where there was a cluster of cacti. During the day all of the birds would fly from cactus to cactus to socialize and hang out with their friends. Every bird made sure they all stayed together among the cactus cluster so they would remain safe from snakes, hawks, and other predators. When it got dark, all of the birds would fly back to their home inside one of the cacti to sleep, but Wren would look up at the stars and dream about getting away from the group and exploring the desert.

Wren grew excessively tired of the same old routine. So one afternoon, after a typical day of socializing with the other birds, he came up with a plan to leave. Early the next morning Wren woke up just as the sun was rising in the sky and took flight. He flew and flew and flew until he reached a little tree where he could stop and rest in the shade. Now the Rattlesnake had been traveling the desert for some time and was growing hungry. As he was slithering along the sandy ground, he spotted Wren in the tiny tree and thought to himself, “That ssssure lookssss tassssty.”

So the Rattlesnake called to the bird, “Hey birdie! I’m a little lossst. Would you mind coming down here and helping me?”

Wren, alone and not knowing of the rattler's intentions, hopped down to a low-hanging branch. “Hi, I’m Wren. What can I help you with?”

Now the other birds had been socializing for a few hours when one of Wren's closest friends realized Wren had not joined the group and informed the rest of the birds about this matter. The birds became worried and decided to create a search party, consisting of Wren's five closet friends. The group of five started flying around the desert together looking for their buddy. They had been flying for a while when all at once they spotted their friend off in the distance talking to the Rattlesnake and immediately began to fly toward him. 

“Yeah, the plateau is right over there,” tweeted Wren to the Rattlesnake.

“Where? I can’t quite see it. You must be too high up. Hop down here and show it to me, would ya?” said the now confident Rattlesnake, his dinner just within his reach.

Just as Wren was about to hop down into the anticipating mouth of the Rattlesnake, his buddies swooped in, two of them grabbing him on either side by his wings, and forcefully flew him to safety on a higher branch, leaving the Rattlesnake on the ground below to starve. The five birds began tweeting at Wren, telling him that the snake was evil and trying to eat him. Wren suddenly realized the danger he had put himself in and felt a shamed. From then on Wren knew that he was always safer with his friends by his side.

Cactus Wren (Wikipedia Commons) 

Slim grinned when he was done telling the story because he could tell all was well. He had done nicely in comparing the birds being safe together to the situation that he and the other cowboys were in. All the cowboys felt at ease and were no longer scared because they knew that they were safer together than alone, just like the birds in Slim's story. So the next day they saddled up their horses and rode on to finish their inevitably successful journey, unafraid of what lay ahead.

As the mother finished her story, she looked down at her son’s limp sleeping body and smiled lovingly. She pulled the covers up over his chest and turned out the light. Tommy had finally fallen asleep. 

Christian Krohg (Painting 1883)

Author's Note:

My story is based on the Arabian Nights. These are stories that are told by Scheherazade who is telling stories to the Sultan so that he will keep her alive. Since the Sultan is keeping Scheherazade alive because of his interest in her stories,  the ultimate goal of the storytelling for Scheherazade is keeping herself alive. Her stories are all told at night, as a type of bedtime story to the Sultan. She tells them in a way that keeps him interested in the story and wanting to hear more. Therefore she cannot be killed because if she were killed then the Sultan could not hear the end of the story. In her stories some of the characters also tell stories, creating a story within another story. I really enjoyed the way she would begin telling a story, start to get into it and then have a character in that story tell his/her own story to the other characters. Other than there being a story within my story, I am comparing my storytelling to Arabian Nights because both use the storytelling to facilitate a goal. While Scheherazade is using it to save her life, the mother in my story is using storytelling to get her son to sleep so that she may have a few minutes of peace, quiet, and relaxation. 

Bibliography: The Arabian Nights Entertainments by Andrew Lang and Illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898)