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What Was He to Do? – a folktale — storytelling

a traditional tale retold by Christopher Agostino ©2011

While traveling from one town to another on business, two merchants were stranded when the bus they were on broke down. The bus driver stayed with his vehicle hoping someone would come by to help, but the men knew it was a very lonely road and thought they would walk on to the next town instead. After walking for several hours they hadn’t seen a soul, and they began to feel tired and hungry. They started looking for a good place to bed down for the night and wished they had something to eat. Then they saw a peasant with a pack on his back coming towards them from the other direction.

The two merchants stopped the peasant and asked him if he had any food to sell. All the peasant had was a cup of dried beans he was saving to cook for his breakfast. Really only enough food for one, but he probably would have shared it with the two men except that they asked if they could buy it, so what was he to do?

The peasant asked them how much money they had. The two merchants conferred, and it turned out they only had 10 centavos between them, as they didn’t carry much money when they went out into the countryside for fear of being robbed. Since they were business men dealing with a peasant they only offered 5 centavos for the beans. It wasn’t a lot of money for the peasant’s only meal, but money was money and he could always use a little more of it, so what was he to do? The peasant agreed and they made the exchange.

Since the beans were dry, the merchants needed water to soak them before cooking, and asked the peasant if knew where there was any. He told them he had passed a stream a few miles back, but the merchants were too tired to walk any further. Instead they conferred again and offered the peasant their last 5 centavos if he would go and fetch the water for them. Well, he probably would have gotten them the water anyway, but since they offered to pay him for it, what was he to do? He took their money and set off for the water.

He came back with the water and all the men had a drink, then the merchants wanted to get the beans soaking so they would be ready to cook for their breakfast in the morning. But then they realized they needed a pot in which to soak and cook the beans. Now, the peasant had just such a pot in his pack, as he often had to cook for himself as he made his way through the countryside, and he told the two merchants. With no more money in their pockets, the only thing the merchants could think of doing was offering the peasant a share of the beans in exchange for the use of his pot. So the peasant took the beans back from them and set them to soak, what was he to do?

Later, the peasant went off to get some wood for a fire. Left to talk, the two merchants decided that one cup of beans was not enough to share amongst three, so they devised a way to trick the peasant out of his share. When the peasant came back they said that since there was so little food it would really only be right if the worthiest among them was the one to get to eat. And when the peasant asked how they should decide who was so worthy the two merchants said they should let God decide. They would each go to sleep, and let God come to them in their dreams, and whoever had the holiest of dreams should be the one to eat the beans. Well, since they were two to his one, what was he to do? The peasant agreed.

It wasn’t the best of nights for the merchants sleeping on the hard ground with their stomachs rumbling from hunger, but they looked forward to the meal in the morning and trusted in their plan to fool the peasant out of his share. They woke to see the peasant already up and dressed. The two hungry merchants set about right away to tell of their dreams.

The first merchant said, “I saw the three of us standing by the side of the road when an angel came down and looked at me. He saw how worthy I was and put a silver cloak upon my shoulders, then the angel lifted me up and I rose on silver wings to be with God in heaven.”

The second merchant spoke next and said, “I saw the three of us standing by the side of the road when an angel came down and looked at me. He saw how worthy I was and put a golden cloak upon my shoulders, then the angel lifted me up and I rose on golden wings to be with God in heaven.”

Then the two merchants turned to look at the peasant, who said, “This is most remarkable. It is as if we all had the same dream. For I also dreamed that the three of us were standing by the side of the road. And I could hardly believe it when two angels came down from the sky and put a cloak on each of your shoulders. Then as I watched both of you rose right up into the sky and disappeared. God had decided you both were worthy, and there was I, left all alone by the side of the road. So I cooked the beans and ate them, what was I to do?”

I wrote this after reading “The Three Dreams” in Latin American Folktales, edited by John Bierhorst, Pantheon Press. That version is credited to Luis Arturo Hernandez Castaneda of Guatemala (but the notes don’t say whether it is from a book by him or a story he told that someone else recorded) and has the tale as two students in a city trying to outsmart an Indian, by pooling their money with his to buy some rice with the plan to trick him out of it via a dream. Two upper class people trying to trick a lower class person via a dream is a motif in folktales from various cultures, identified as motif type: “AT 1626 Dream Bread”

I retained only the basic structure for my version here, changing the characters, the setting and the sequence of events.

StoryFaces: The Power of a Story — reading and telling your own stories

by Christopher Agostino

StoryFaces: The Power of a Story
Folktales, Fables and Adventure Tales in a celebration of why we tell stories.
A special version of my StoryFaces performance for schools and libraries to get kids reading more and telling their own stories.

StoryFaces: The Power of a Story is a special program of traditional and original tales exemplifying why such stories survive, and what they can still teach us today — to encourage kids to find stories that relate to their lives and to tell their own stories about their dreams and aspirations. The power of a story is an essential expression of human consciousness: to understand ourselves better by learning about others, to reach forward into the future through what we pass on to our children and to take control of who we are and all we dream of becoming by the story we make of our own lives.

StoryFaces: The Power of a Story is a 45 – 60 minute performance for school aged children and family audiences. The performance includes a range of stories from Aesop Fables to adventures like “The Tiger that Went to the House of the Sun”, with variable content for different ages, plus a brand new story created specifically for this Summer’s Library Reading  theme to get kids thinking about what they could do to Build A Better World for everyone:  “The Storyteller and the Magic Fish”
There is also an available follow-up activity in which participants create an original story in which they are the star through a drawing exercise and writing:
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This article is part of the teacher’s guide I send to schools, explaining my approach in the assembly program. For a printable pdf of this article, click on this link: Tshow_TeacherGuide_PowerOfAStory

What is the Power of a Story?

Who won the race, the tortoise or the hare? We all know the answer, and with it an intrinsic reminder about the value of perseverance. This is why such stories survive. The traditional function of folktales is still effective today: to pass wisdom and cultural information on to children via entertaining stories they will remember (and repeat to their children). We remember stories. They are the building blocks of memory. Current memory research says that we are always telling ourselves the stories of our own lives, repackaging our experiences into stories to retain and recall them, and, importantly, how we re-write those experiences effects the choices we make when presented with similar opportunities in the future — so even our personal stories serve to retain life-lessons in the same way as Aesop’s Fables do.

The power of a story also resides in its ability to inspire the listeners and elevate their understanding of what they can achieve beyond their personal experiences, as in the Native American tale of the mouse who becomes an eagle through his acts of compassion, or the ancient Chinese tale of the brave maiden Li Chi who slays the dragon then chastises the spirits of the maidens sent to sacrifice before her for not taking care of the dragon themselves. Taking control of our life through the story we make of it is the essential lesson of the hero tale.

Hero tales are the original Motivational Programs, designed and time-tested to inspire positive behavior and exemplify attributes such as courage, perseverance, intelligence and self-sacrifice. These types of tales are especially important for older kids and teenagers to hear as they begin to deal with personal responsibility and the emotional turmoils of life, questioning who they are and seeing themselves as either victims or heros in a challenging world. Folktales also allow for ways to discuss real life more abstractly, through parables and imaginary characters, so that a story can approach difficult subjects without being too personal.

Young people need to hear stories, both traditional folktales and original life stories, not only for their ability to pass on received wisdom but also for the insight they give kids into understanding the story of their own life, into taking control of how they write that story. Beginning with the concentration skills that develop from listening to stories, the ability to parse the essence of the story within a folktale, anecdote, life experience, etc., engages higher reasoning and comprehension skills that can be applied directly to writing, reading and all forms of problem solving.

When I am telling a story to an audience, what I am listening to is their silence — when the audience is silent I know they are experiencing the story for themselves, living it. It is becoming their story too. In that silence I recall that this is something we humans have done from our very beginning. The power of a story is an essential expression of human consciousness: to understand ourselves better by learning about others, to reach forward into the future through what we pass on to our children and to take control of who we are and all that we dream of becoming.

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See the video: What Is A StoryFace?

“I am a painter and a storyteller, and this is how I tell my tales. StoryFaces is an innovative performance in which I paint the faces of audience volunteers to illustrate the stories as I tell them.”

learn about Christopher’s Stories

learn about all we do at: agostinoarts.com

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Whatever Makes You Happy — storytelling

There is a classic folktale motif of saving the life of a magic animal that can grant wishes and then asking it for more and more and more until finally the magic animal says that you have asked for too much and you end up with nothing. The one I’ve seen most often is about a fisherman and his greedy wife. Reading a similar tale from Bolivia called “The Mouse King” (in the Pantheon Press book “Latin American Folktales” edited by John Bierhorst), I wanted to re-tell it with a girl who is not greedy, but who is working from the cultural understanding that the only way to be happy is to have more.

Once a young Farmgirl sat idly, day-dreaming, looking out on a beautiful morning from the window of her family’s old barn at an hour when she should have been milking the family cow. Just as she began to think about whether she should get up and begin her chores, she heard little scampering feet, followed by the “wrowl” of a cat and the squeal of a mouse. As the mouse kept squealing she called out to her cat, “Let’s see what you’ve caught, Old Tom.” And she followed the sound to the sight of a big tabby sitting amongst the sacks of grain, swishing its own tail as it held a little mouse by the tail in its teeth. What a cute little mouse, thought the girl, all bright white except for a circle of golden fur upon its head. What a nice pet it would make.

So she hissed at the cat and spooked it into dropping the little mouse and running off. The mouse lay exhausted and shivering, too tired to move as the girl scooped it up into the milking can she had with her. What a cute little mouse, she thought again, as it squealed again and ran in circles around the inside of the can.

Then the mouse stopped running, sat quite still at the bottom of the can and looked up at the girl. “Thank you, thank you, for saving my life,” said the little white mouse, “but please let me go now.”  The girl was dumbfounded, blinking her eyes she placed the milking can on the floor of the barn. “What did you say?” she asked the mouse.

“I am so very grateful that you have saved me,” said the mouse, “now please let me go back home to my family and I will be sure to reward you.”

“You are a clever little mouse to be sure, and I don’t quite know how you have come to talk, but what reward could a mouse offer me?” asked the girl.

“You have but to wish for whatever makes you happy and it will be yours, for I am the King of the Mice and I am in your debt.”

“Well, little king,” said the girl, “I know what I will wish for, for often I think how fine it would be if I didn’t have to work so hard each day to keep this old farm running. Make this farm prosperous and new, with farmhands to do my chores.”

“Whatever makes you happy,” said the Mouse King.

And the world spun around twice and when it had stopped the barn looked like new. The girl saw stalls for a fine team of horses filled with fresh straw, and a row of fat cows being milked by the farmhands. This is wonderful, she thought, and ran out of the barn to see fields of green all around her, and she turned back to see her mother calling to her from a quaint little farm house nestled amongst the growing fields, telling her that the boy from the next farm over had come to call on her.

But oh, then she thought, I am still on a farm and always will be, and there is so much more in the world that a girl would like to do and see. Why didn’t I ask for a castle?

And she ran back into the barn to find the little mouse there still trapped within the milking can. “Little mouse, little mouse,” she said, “I asked for a farm when I should have asked for a castle, with wealthy parents who are the lord and lady of a big estate. Can I ask for this as reward for saving your life?”

“Whatever makes you happy,” said the Mouse King.

And the world flipped over to the left and the right, and once it had settled down again the girl stood inside the stables of a grand castle with carriages coming to and fro, full of elegant men and women, and her father, the Lord, calling for her to meet the young men who had come to see her, seeking a wife. But oh, then she thought, why should I  settle for being just another lord’s wife when there is so much more a girl can do and be.

Again she returned to the mouse in the milking can. “What I really want is to be a royal princess, to live in the palace of a great king and queen, with visitors from all over the world, and ladies in waiting to serve me.”

“Whatever makes you happy,” said the Mouse King.

And so the world shrank down to a tiny little pinprick and blew itself back up great and grand, and when it was finished the girl found herself wearing a diamond tiara and a beautiful long gown with servants holding the train behind as she floated down a long staircase to a magnificent hall full of lords and ladies bowing at her approach. Before her, calling to her, were her parents, the king and the queen, standing beside princes that had come from far off lands to ask for her hand in marriage. No, no, no, she thought, still this is not all that I can wish for. Even a princess serves the man that she marries, as even a queen serves her king. Perhaps if I were an empress with no man above me? But that life would be a lonely one, and still my life would not truly be my own, for I would have to serve my people, to care for them and lead them. Where, then, where shall I find my own happiness?

So she ran from that great hall, leaving the royal family flummoxed and all the courtiers in a tizzy, and called and called to the little mouse. She found him again, once she’d reached the royal stables, sitting still in the milking can. “Little mouse, little mouse,” she cried, “I am so confused and don’t know what to ask for. So many things I have thought that I wanted, but none will bring me happiness. Glad I am to have saved you, but unless you can grant me happiness itself, I do not know what reward to take.”

“Kind girl,” said the Mouse King, “it is your happiness that I also wish for.”

And, in the very blink of her eye, closed and then open, the Farmgirl found herself sitting by the window of her family’s old barn, enjoying the sun rising over a beautiful day. Just then she heard little scampering feet, the “wrowl” of a cat and the squeal of a mouse. Finding the farm’s tabby sitting there with a cute little mouse caught by the tail, she shooed the cat away and rescued the mouse. Poor little thing, she thought, sitting there shivering and afraid. I am sure it only came into the barn this morning because it was hungry. So she picked out some loose grains of wheat from a sack sitting there and held out her hand to the mouse. The mouse stepped onto her hand to eat the wheat, and she thought it was a funny little thing, grey on the back and white on its belly with a curious black patch at the corners of its mouth that made it look like it was smiling. So the girl smiled, too.

“I think I’ll call you ‘Lucky’,” said the girl.

Just then the family cow mooed, growing impatient. She put her new friend into her apron pocket with some more grains of wheat as she picked up her milking pail and set off to make the cow happy and start her day.

© 2011 Christopher Agostino

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