Week 6 Story: The Milk-Giving Serpent

The man coming to the serpent
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There once was a farmer who had land that was not producing like it should be due to drought and the farmer's family was going hungry. He was walking along a dirt path on the back of his land where he got too hot to walk. He sat down beside a tree to rest for many hours. When he woke, he saw a serpent pit and walked up to it. "You must be the protector of my land," said the farmer. "I will offer you a gift in return if you help my land" he stated. The man went home and looked for something special to give to the serpent. He took a bowl filled it with gold coins and took it to the serpent.

The serpent came out of his pit to see what the man had brought him. He looked at the bowl of gold and gave the man a pitcher of milk. The man took the pitcher home and showed his family what he had got. He did this for three days and brought home many pitchers of milk.

The farmer then decided if he took his son with him and thought he would be bale to carry back more pitchers of milk. So the farmer and his son walked to the serpent pit and waited there with their bowls of gold coins. The boy thought to himself if he killed the serpent when he comes out, then he could get all of the milk the serpent owned. When the serpent came out the boy grabbed a stick and hit the serpent on the head trying to kill it. The serpent spun around and bit the boy releasing his venom. The farmer grabbed his son and watched him die in his arms.

The man cursed the serpent and in return the serpent told the farmer, "It is your son you should be cursing. His greed got the best of him and now you shall never receive milk from me again after today." The serpent took the bowl of gold and gave the farmer a pitch of milk.  The man took the milk and cursed his son all the way home.

Author Notes: The story was tales from The Gold-Giving Serpent. In that story a farmer offers the serpent milk in return for gold. His son gets greedy and tries to kill the serpent to collect all the gold but in return gets bitten and dies. The farmer is told to leave and never return.
http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/03/indian-fairy-tales-gold-giving-serpent.html

Comments

  1. WilkeADubbFebruary 22, 2020 at 10:54 AM

    Hi Hunter!

    I like that you twisted this story around and had the serpent give the milk instead of the gold. It is kind of funny to think of a serpent producing milk... or maybe he owns some cows? I think this was a good simple retelling of the story! There are so many ways to expand this story though. You could focus more on how this farmer had so much gold even though he was experiencing difficulty on his farm. You could elaborate on how the serpent had milk and what he used the gold for. You could even make a change to the story and have the boy live or end up as a servant to the serpent. Sometimes it is fun to switch it up in bigger ways!

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  2. Emily M.February 22, 2020 at 2:32 PM

    Hi Hunter! I like how you kept true to the story and added your own twist by switching off the gold and the milk. I think it may have made more sense to switch it for something else because gold is more valuable than milk. You could maybe even change a whole different aspect of the story like having the boy survive or maybe killing the snake and realizing that the snake was more valuable alive providing milk than dead. Great job over all! I enjoyed the dialogue and how you explained the story over-all! keep up the good work!

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  3. Antonieta HernándezFebruary 23, 2020 at 7:46 PM

    Hi Hunter! I find it hilarious the way you inverted the gold and milk, goes to show that anything can be worth just as much as gold when it is truly needed. For some reason when the man took his boy to see the snake the first thing I thought was that he was giving his son as payment that time, sacrificing him to ensure a lifetime of milk. It might be a dark twist that you could explore if you wanted to. In any case, this was a nice story that was well-written and that cleverly improved on the original one. Great work!

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