Week 14 Storytelling: A Lesson About Death

One night, a mother named Clara was trying to put her two children to bed in their room. They were boisterous and bouncy, and they wouldn't hold still long enough for them to fall asleep.

"That's it! I've had it!" Clara cried. "So long as you don't keep your father and I awake, I don't care whether you sleep or not."

She shut their door and went into her bedroom next door. She she was getting ready for bed, she told her husband about her day with the children. Clara was homeschooling her children, and had spent all day teaching them lessons about how different baby animals are born. She had taught them that birds lay eggs, and mammals have live young.

"Tomorrow," she said, "I'm going to teach the children a lesson about death."

What Clara didn't know was that her children were listening on the other side of the wall.

The little girl, Hannah, looked at her brother, Jacob, very seriously.

"Mom's going to kill us for not going to bed on time!" Hannah said.

"Surely not," Jacob said. "Maybe we misheard her."

"She said she was going to teach us a lesson about death!" Hannah cried. "We had better run away or she's going to kill us!"

Jacob wasn't all that convinced, but Hannah's panic was catching, and soon, Jacob was worried too. The two children packed up a few belongings and quietly sneaked out of the house.

Outside in the cold night air, Hannah and Jacob glanced around. They decided left was as good a direction as any, and they started walking.

Suddenly, the heard a dog barking and snarling. They looked over their shoulders to see a great Saint Bernard was chasing them down the street.

(Image Information: "Female Saint Bernard Dog" by ZaGerald, 2008.)

"Run!" Jacob yelled. The siblings took off running down the street. Jacob was sure they wouldn't be fast enough, but just as the dog started gaining on them a car came out of no where. It swerved to avoid hitting the children and the dog. It squealed to a stop in the middle of the road, putting a barrier between the kids and the dog.

The driver of the car got out and ran toward the dog.

"Oh thank goodness you're alright, Muffin," the woman said, patting the dog's ears.

"Be careful!" Hannah said. "That dog tried to kill us!"

"He wasn't trying to kill you. He was just trying to catch you," the woman said. "When I saw two children walking down the middle of the road at night, I got so nervous. So I sent Muffin to bring you back. I'm sorry if he scared you. But why are you out so late at night?"

"Our mother said she was going to teach us a lesson about death tomorrow!" Hannah cried.

"That's an odd thing to say. What did she teach you today?" the woman asked.

"About how animals are born," Jacob said.

"Well, that's life! Tomorrow's lesson will probably be about how animals die," the woman said.

"Ohhhh," Hannah and Jacob said together.

"Now, children, let me take you home to your parents. They must be so worried," the woman said.

The next day, the mother was so thankful to have her children back home that they took the day off from lessons entirely and played board games instead.

The moral of the story is two-fold. Don't listen in on people's conversations, and once you think you see your future, it changes because you now will have a different idea of how to reach it or hide from it.

Author's Note: This story was inspired by "The Monks and the Butcher," from the Heptameron of Margaret, Queen of Navarre, translated by Walter K. Kelly, 1855. In the original story, two monks stay the night at a butcher's house. There is a mix up over the difference between the word for monks and pigs, and the monks fear for their lives. One climbs out the window and runs away, but when the second one jumps from the window, he hurts his leg. He hides in the butcher's barn, and when the butcher comes the next morning to slaughter a pig, the monk absolutely freaks out. Eventually, the whole thing turns into a funny story about a misunderstanding.

Week 14 Reading Diary: Heptameron of Margaret, Queen of Navarre

This week I chose to read the Heptameron of Margaret, Queen of Navarre unit.

In the story of the Boatwoman and the Monks, I was glad that the young lady was smart enough to save herself from being raped by the two monks. But even though this story is from the 1500s, I don't like the emphasis it places on how it is women's responsibility to protect their purity. It is always men's responsibility not to rape.

In The Lady From Milan and Her Lover, it seems crazy to me that the man would pursue her for three years with no reply. Like geez, take a hint. But the woman's test of his valor was pretty impressive.

The story of The Virgin with Child was a strange one. I was glad that the church realized that the girl couldn't have been pregnant without having sex because that would pretty much signify the second coming of Christ, and he isn't supposed to come as a baby again. I also liked the analysis that covering up a crime with religion was twice as bad. But the whole idea of a priest getting his thirteen year old sister pregnant and then lying about it was very strange.

The Monks and the Butcher has definitely been my favorite story so far because it had nothing at all to do with a woman's purity. This story is about two men who think they hear their future, and once they learn it, it changes. In the process of trying to outrun their future, one of them accidentally almost fulfills it.

I didn't much like The President of Grenoble's Revenge. There was one particularly sexist line: "The doctors say that such a sin is more pardonable because a man is not master of such emotions, and, consequently, the sin he commits in that state may be forgiven." And as usual, the man that the wife cheated with wasn't punished.

In the Brother and Brother-in-Law, the brother certainly acts foolishly. Even after his sister tells him that she is married to the man he is sleeping with, the brother still has him killed, and then he sends his sister off to cover up the mistake. It reminds me of the story of David and Bathsheba. 

At the end of The Woman and the Chanter, it definitely seemed like the storyteller was blaming the husband for not keeping a better eye on his wife. While I'm glad that the blame wasn't placed on the wife for being adulterous, it is certainly not the husband's responsibility to keep his wife from leaving him either.

Secrets Revealed is a 1500s example of rape culture. When the wife is retelling the story of her rape, the listener basically says that the wife enjoyed it.