There is a city called Great Ant Hill. In it lived the great Queen Ant. In her kingdom, there lived a worker ant in one of the finer enclaves of Great Ant Hill, and this worker ant had four sons.
One day, the worker ant was busy hauling a bread crumb back to the kingdom when a torrential downpour occurred and swept him away, never to be seen again. The relatives of the worker ant took all of his meager possessions, leaving his four sons with virtually nothing.
The sons, seeing that there was nothing holding them in their area of the kingdom of Great Ant Hill, decided that they would seek out their ant grandfather in another enclave in order to live with him. When they got to their grandfathers little ant home, they found out that he had become trapped in tree sap and was now enclosed in it forever. Just when they were about to turn back and return to their father’s home, they saw their uncles and decided to stay with them for a while.
The four brothers stayed with their uncles for a while, but before too long, things started getting tense. Their uncles became fed up with them on account of their unwillingness to help out around their part of the ant hill, so they started keeping food from them and forbade them to sleep on the soft leaves, instead forcing them to sleep on the ground.
The brothers were deeply troubled by these events, and the older brother even admitted to the younger brothers that he wouldn’t mind getting stuck in some tree sap himself. The younger brothers, however, told him that he should pursue knowledge instead of wallowing in self-pity, and as a result, the four brothers decided to travel to four different ant hills in order to study with other ants and gain their knowledge.
After a very long time apart, several days, they reconvened and excitedly shared what they had learned.
“I can take a skeleton of any animal in the world and put the right kind of flesh on it!” exclaimed the oldest.
“I have learned how to put the appropriate skin and hair on any flesh covered skeleton! excitedly said the second oldest.
The third brother chimed in and said, “I know how to put the appropriate eyes and organs into a body after it is covered with flesh, skin, and hair.”
The youngest proudly proclaimed, “When all of the organs are there, I can give the creature the breath of life!”
The four ant brothers excitedly decided to venture into the forest in order to put their knowledge to the test. It just so happened that they had not walked for two hours when they came upon a massive skeleton.
“Woah. Let’s bring this one to life.” said the oldest.
Not knowing what kind of skeleton it was, the brothers began to do their work. The oldest brother fitted the skeleton with the right flesh. The second oldest added the appropriate skin and hair, the third brother added the right organs and eyes, and the youngest gave it life.
Alas! What the brothers didn’t know was that the creature they had brought back to life was an anteater! When the anteater looked around and saw the tasty ants, he immediately at them and went on his merry way into the forest.
Thus, the four ants died because they made the worst kind of animal. Who could think that ants creating an anteater would be a good idea? For this reason, it’s important to see that something acquired that goes against fate shall not benefit the one that acquired it.
Author’s Note: I chose to tell the story of The Four Brothers from the point of view of ants because, quite frankly, I couldn’t really come up with anything else. In Twenty-Two Goblins, the goblin that the king repeatedly has to get from a tree in order to bring to the monk tells the king a story in the form of a riddle while the king carries him. At the end of the story, if the king cannot answer the riddle correctly, he is told that the goblin will kill him. One of the stories is the story that I chose to write on. In the original, the tale centers around four brothers that go and study a science after the death of their father and then meet up to show each other what they have learned. This part of the story I kept essentially the same. However, in the original they revive a lion that kills them, and in my version, it’s an anteater. I noticed that the stories in this unit tended to be very grim, so I thought maybe my version would be less grim because it was centered around ants.
Twenty-Two Goblins, translated by Arthur W. Ryder, with illustrations by Perham W. Nahl (1917)
Web source: UN-Textbook
Tatyana: It's really interesting that you thought of writing a story in which the ants created an anteater instead of a lion; I think perhaps your version is a more sensible rendering of the ants' fate!
ReplyDeleteI also thought you did a nice job of weaving dialogue and narration together. I noticed that some of the dialogue could have been supported with more contextual description, such as the condition of the ant hill, the appearance of the ants, and so on, but I enjoyed thinking about these ants and their plights. Nice job!
Hey, Tatyana! Your story was really well-written. I definitely did not see the ending coming and was impressed about how you were able to weave the story together without me predicting the ending. I also appreciated the author’s note and your honesty. The image was a nice touch. Keep up the great work! I can’t imagine what to improve on – maybe just working on a catchier introduction (if anything).
ReplyDeleteI read Twenty Two Goblins this week also! I thought it was a great storybook! You did a really good job with your storytelling post. I love your new approach to the story of the four brothers! Making them ants and then having the story come from an animal kingdom perspective was really creative. I like your writing style too, awesome job!
ReplyDeleteTatyana does it again! I really do just love your writing. It's descriptive and engaging but not to the point to where you're trying too hard! Also, it's super fun having done the same unit as you because I know the story you are talking about! My favorite part of your is how you changed ti to be not as gruesome. I agree that a lot of these tales can be very unnecessarily gruesome, so your version is a lot more fun to me! Ants were the perfect choice!
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