The Carpenter's Elephant Week 6 Story
Bibliography. "The King's White Elephant " from Jakata Anthology. https://sacred-texts.com/bud/jt/jt16.htm
Once upon a time, there were these 4 carpenters who lived on a big piece of land with their own houses. They were all friends but had their own families and would always meet up to ride on their golf cart to cut down trees to turn into lumber. They had been doing this task for 4 straight years and nothing like this had ever happened to them.
One day, as they were cutting down trees, a little baby elephant came running up to them. "HELP, HELP, HELP, my dad is in need of someone to help him." These carpenters were very confused and hesitant at first but when the little baby started to get really sad, they decided to help him out. They get in their golf cart and follow to his dad.
"Please help me, I can only walk on 3 legs and I am struggling." says the grown elephant. The carpenters examine the dad and see he has a splinter in his foot and that is what is causing his pain. The carpenters help get the splinter out, and the elephant is perfectly fine.
A few days go by and the elephant wants to repay them in a way because of how much they have helped him be able to be normal again. The son and the dad decide to figure out every single day the carpenters go out to cut trees down and decide to help them every time by helping them take down the trees and roll them back to their houses.
Sadly enough, eventually, the dad passes away and the 4 carpenters decide to take care of the baby elephant and feed him, and let him be like their own pet since he is out in the world alone and doesn't know what to do. :(
Authors Note: I decided to change the story up a little bit. I had the baby elephant come to the carpenters and tell him their dad needs help instead of the dad coming up to them and asking to see what was wrong. In the original story, the baby elephant is a white elephant and eventually gets bought by a King but the carpenters did so much, in the baby's eyes, that he wanted to make sure he repaid them and make his dad proud then eventually he became like the carpenters own pet.
Hi Logan, aww what a cute story! I like how the carpenters treated the elephants with kindness and wanted to help them out, rather than use them for a selfish gain. I also like how the carpenters took in the baby elephant after the father died so the elephant is not left all alone. I wonder what would have happened if the elephant had asked someone else for help. Unlike that one man in the original story who received help from the elephant and did not repay the elephant in return (instead having him separated from his mom so he can become a pet to the king), I'm glad that the elephants in the story wished to help the carpenters in return for their kindness. I think it tells a lot about the difference in character between the man in the original story and the elephants in this story! I look forward to reading more of your stories!
ReplyDeleteHey Logan!
ReplyDeleteThis is such an amazing story! I think it was super sweet and I would love to use something like this in my anthology about the animals of Indian Epics. I really love how you use the original source material to create such a wholesome story! I am definitely going to bookmark this one so that I can use this for inspiration later down the road. Overall, awesome story and I cant wait to read more!
Hey Logan!
ReplyDeleteThis story was so sweet! I love reading stories like this because they are so filled with kindness. I really liked how there was no barriers between the elephants and the carpenters, more specifically language barriers. I'm sure the lack of barriers was inspired by the original story you cited. Overall this story was really fun to read! It was short and sweet! Thank you for sharing!
Logan,
ReplyDeleteI thought your story was very sweet and wholesome. I enjoyed how you wrote the story because I felt a little emotional connection to the little elephant. I know in the original story that the men just straight up kidnapped the young elephant to be a pet for the king. It is kind of sad that the mom dies and the elephant ends up being taken care of by the men anyways though.