Once upon a time, there were only pure and nice people on the planet. They were living a simple life and all they wanted was to fill their stomachs and get a good sleep. Both males and females would go hunting and fishing. When they got back home, they would share meals together. The people who stayed at home or in the village would help cook what they got and also pick up fruits. They also made jams on their own with fresh strawberries and other wild berries. They lived a fine life and they were all happy.

Because of their lifestyle and how collaborative it was they improved rapidly. One day there came an evil witch from a different land. She was always alone and she has been living like this for over a hundred years in her cave and she only eats antlers. She would eat antlers as cereal in the morning with milk and raw antlers as lunch and dinner. If she was hungry during the day, dry antlers would be her snack because it tastes like cookies when it’s dry. She is an evil witch and what she sees in the world is all nasty and dark. 

She was jealous of how these people lived a healthy, happy and fulfilling life as a community. At first, they welcomed her with a warm attitude and they did not mind sharing what they have with someone else, even though she is a witch. To them, they just have to save the antlers for her when they are back from hunting. 

At first, the witch was flattered. She had never been treated like this in her whole life. It was a new experience, so she decided to live her life with them. She tried to cook and help them. She tried to live as a human being, share and care for people. She tried to look at the bright side of things.

After decades, she started to realize that it was never going to happen. When she realized that the people have a better life than her she started to get jealous. They had a community. They were all helping each other and they all had shared goals. They were closer to each other than to her, and she could not stand it. She was not okay when someone else gets more food even though she doesn’t even eat the same food. 

At the end of the day, she decided that she would rather turn people into her than living with a bunch of animals that live so against her natural instinct. She decided to turn 1% of people into witches like her and to see what happens next, and selfishly, to feel less alone. To turn them into witches she told them the story of the witch before her, who went to live in a different village and brought evil there. The people who heard the story wanted to be strong and powerful like witches. Afterwards she went back to her cave and observe them to see what happens. People started to change. They no longer thought in terms of the group and began to act in their own interests. They started competing for the most food and biggest hunting bounty and began to isolate each other into groups and exclude the weaker ones and the different ones. The witch cackled as she ate her antlers and said;

“Once you have told a story, you can never take it back. So, be careful of the stories you tell, and the stories you listen to.” (King, 10)

 Reflection on storytelling:

I believe that people are all kind and warm naturally. There must be something that changes them. When I look back at our history, I still wonder what got us here. Writing this story, I was thinking about how isolation and not understanding others can create fear, selfishness, and evil, like it did for the witch and the people she turned in this village. With King’s last line, I think we can think about the stories we hear about ourselves, our land, our people, and the ones we choose to believe or not, and how this is tied to understanding and fear of differences. It was hard to create a clear story because I had so many ideas but wanted it to be short. This is also true in storytelling, the reader has to finish the world being created for themselves. The story is not the whole picture, we must fill in the blanks with imagination, which Chamberlin mentioned in our readings last week. That’s why we must be careful about which stories we tell, how we tell them, and which ones we listen to. We must first understand why, how and from where they came to be!

References

Chamberlin, Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground. AA. Knopf. Toronto. 2003. Print.

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. House of Anansi, 2003.