Week 1 Storytelling: A Farmer's Tale
HERCULES AND THE WAGONER
A Farmer was driving his wagon along a miry country road after a heavy rain. The horses could hardly drag the load through the deep mud, and at last came to a standstill when one of the wheels sank to the hub in a rut.
The farmer climbed down from his seat and stood beside the wagon looking at it but without making the least effort to get it out of the rut. All he did was to curse his bad luck and call loudly on Hercules to come to his aid. Then, it is said, Hercules really did appear, saying:
"Put your shoulder to the wheel, man, and urge on your horses. Do you think you can move the wagon by simply looking at it and whining about it? Hercules will not help unless you make some effort to help yourself."
And when the farmer put his shoulder to the wheel and urged on the horses, the wagon moved very readily, and soon the Farmer was riding along in great content and with a good lesson learned.
Self help is the best help.
Heaven helps those who help themselves.
~~~
Looking at his broken down wagon, the farmer lamented his poor fortune and pleaded with the Gods to help him.
"Oh great ones up high," said the farmer, "I have worked to long and hard to get this wagon over the hill, please do not let all my work go to waste"
However, instead of a god the great Hercules appeared before him, suspiciously pale with a cane in hand. Refusing to help unless the man himself made a greater effort, the farmer was tasked with moving the wheels himself. The farmer pleaded once more:
"But surely with your incredible strength I need not struggle with this wagon myself. Did you not arrive to rescue me from this stroke of bad luck"
The farmer was met with a piercing gaze and the warrior Hercules refused once more, urging the farmer to put his own strength to the test.
"Put your shoulder to the wheel, man, and urge on your horses. Do you think you can move the wagon by simply looking at it and whining about it? Hercules will not help unless you make some effort to help yourself."
Reluctantly the farmer placed his skinny, feeble hands on the wagon and with a deep breath began to push while urging the horses to move. It was at this moment that something unbelievable occurred.
The wagon which, moments ago, felt rooted to the ground refusing to budge even an inch, was now being casually pushed up the hill as though being carried by twenty horses. But it was none other than the modest farmer, shocked at his own strength as he began forcing the wagon across the path with a single hand.
Growing in strength with each step, by the time the farmer got over the hill, he grabbed the wagon once more with his right hand and lifted the entire object several feet off the ground with a deceptive display of ease. He gazed at Hercules as though expecting an answer to this miracle.
"What magic is this great warrior," said the man "that a mere farmer such as I may lift this wagon off the ground and feel only the weight of a feather?"
Hercules explained to him that his being there was not simply to help the man but also to help himself:
"I am slowly dying from a curse for which even the Gods themselves have no remedy. My father Zeus took pity on me and agreed to bestow my powers upon one that I deem worthy. I must confess that I have been watching you for some time now. I have borne witness to your many acts of kindness and so I have come to see you accept this power in person."
And so the farmer named Anicetus accepted this gift and set forth throughout the land doing good in the name of Hercules.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
The fable used here is meant to teach the lesson that there is great value in helping oneself before trying to request help from others. In the fable the farmer is able to use his own strength to push the wagon. But this only occurs because Hercules helps him to realize his own strength. Therefore, I decided to take a much more literal approach to the idea of the farmer discovering strength through Hercules. Also, the farmer is named after one of the sons that is born after Hercules dies and becomes a god. I thought that using this the name Anicetus would add greater meaning to the idea that the farmer carries on Hercules' legacy just as a son may do for his father.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The story is based on the fable "Hercules and the Wagoner" in Aesop for Children, by (anonymous), illustrated by Milo Winter (1919)
WOW, Eaton, what a fantastic adaptation of that story! It is one of my favorite fables, but I never even imagined to myself something like this. Part of the reason people were devoted to Hercules was exactly in the hope that he would lend them his strength... and you have made that even more dramatic here, with Hercules actually choosing this man as a special disciple or successor, so that there is a kind of divine strength inside this man, just as we might discover some special powers inside ourselves. That is really wonderful! It's also a good example of both karma and dharma, which are two themes you are going to see in the epics: the dharma, or righteousness, sense of duty, leads to good consequences — karma means consequences, the actions that result from other actions. So keep an eye out for karma and dharma in the readings this week, and you will see some good echoes of the themes of your story here!
ReplyDeleteI love being able to put little easter eggs in stories like the use of the name of a son who was around after Hercules as the farmers name. When I was reading the story I was hoping the name meant something, and you didn't disappoint.
ReplyDeleteWhat was truly great, as Laura pointed out, was the fact that you used a character like Hercules who is known for is physical strength almost exclusively in mythology, and you created a new story involving his mental prowess. It was definitely an interesting juxtaposition for the character himself to be in, being feeble and dieing. I like the process that came out.
Also I liked the conflict that was chosen. You decided to use two themes, Man versus self, and Man versus nature. The obvious part is the man versus nature, he was trying to get the wheel out of push the cart up the mountain. Both times the nature he was fighting was gravity, which I thought was an interesting device if it meant a symbolic gravity of his burdens etc. It might have been interesting to see another form of nature that the farmer had to overcome if that was not the case.
The man versus himself was a cool device in this story. It was the essence of the quote to rewrite, of course, but using this conflict places the story directly in the hands of the audience since all members of the human race have experienced and felt the crushing of being overburdened. They can relate to this characters efforts and thus can experience the story with the character.
Eaton,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your story. I love when new authors make their own interpretations on classic works, and yours did not disappoint. I particularly enjoy how you didn't directly contradict anything in the original work, working within all the boundaries set forth must have been challenging. Further, I like how you tied this retelling back into the larger world of classical mythology. I'm glad that you explained it in your authors note however, because it would have been entirely lost on me otherwise. I have never gotten to that level of familiarity with Greek/Roman mythology. Finally, I like how you didn't go into detail of the curse put on Hercules. It would have cluttered up the story without contributing anything meaningful, you made a good design choice.
I look forward to reading more of your work, I'm sure you could come up with some other great twists on classical mythology. I also think there could be some interesting stories told if you decided to continue with Anicetus as a more permanent character.
Andrew
Eaton, I really enjoyed this story of yours! You did a great job of retelling a story. I loved the lesson of the story about how you should realize your own potential and not quickly ask for help from others. With that said, you did a great job of transforming this story into something entirely different. It was a very well thought out story! Great job!
ReplyDeleteEaton,
ReplyDeleteI have read a couple of your other stories, but I can’t believe that I haven’t gotten a chance to read this one. This was a great adaptation of the original fable. I really like the moral of “Self-help is the best help”. I also liked that you chose to have the wagoner be the successor of the tremendous strength of Hercules. Great job on this story!