“My husband has been gone for just way too long. I am in
some serious need of male attention. That man across the street has been
hitting on me for months and continuously asking me to come over at night.
Clearly it’s a booty call, but I mean come on…. My husband practically
abandoned me when he went on his travels. That’s it. I’m going! What do you
think of the matter my dear parrot?”
“Well you see, I understand that you’re lonely. I know it
must not be easy for you to not have the company of a man in your bed at night.
I know that having that is very comforting to a woman. I think you should go,
it’s just I don’t want what happened to the Fowler, the Parrot, and her Young
Ones, to happen to you, “ responded the parrot in a mysterious way.
“But what do you mean? What happened to them? Please
explain,” exclaimed the wife, Karlie.
And so the parrot began to tell the story to Karlie.
Once upon a time a parrot and her babies lived a happy life
together. Every morning she would care and nurture them. They were the cutest
little bird family there ever was. Then one day, out of nowhere, a Fowler came
and captured them in a net because parrots at the time were very valuable
creatures.
Upset at their entrapment, the mother quickly devised a
plan. She made all of her babies act dead so that way when the Fowler came he
would throw them out. The Fowler did come, and the plan worked. He threw each
of the babies out, and then all at once they got up and flew away.
Enraged that he was tricked, the fowler grabbed the mother
parrot and was close to killing her when she told him of her special powers.
She told him that if he spared her life, that he would be able to sell her for
such an enormous amount that he would never have to worry about money ever
again.
Weary of the offer, he asked why she was so sure she would
be worth that much. She explained that she was a physician and knew of a nearby
prince with a terrible illness. If he so wanted, he could sell her to the
prince and she would cure him of his disease.
Excited by the thought of being rich, he quickly set out to
find the prince. When he did, he sold the parrot for what was the equivalent of
one million dollars at the time. The parrot immediately started her treatments
on the prince and he was slowly getting better.
As the prince started to get better, the pain of the parrot
missing her children got worse, so she devised another plan. She told the
prince that she needed to go out and find another cure for his disease, but
that for her to do this he must let her out of her cage.
The prince, clearly delusional from his sickness agreed and
let the parrot out. The mother parrot flew out and never returned to the
prince. Instead she set out and after a few days was reunited with her
children.
“Wow, what a wonderful story that was. I love hearing your
stories every night, however, I think I will go ahead and head across the
street. I want to stay the night with the prince,” said Karlie.
At that moment the rooster crowed and she realized that is
was already daylight. If she was going to go over to the prince’s house, she
could only do it during the night when no one could see.
Karlie realized she would not be seeing her lover that night,
but had hope to go over the next night. What she didn’t realize was that the
parrot was already devising a new story to tell her for the next night in order
to keep her away from the prince and faithful to her husband.
Imaged Retrieved From: Take Designs
Picture of two beautiful parrots.
Author's Note
This is one of the many stories that the parrot in the Tales of a Parrot section tells. In the original story, the parrot is trying to keep the wife, Khojisteh, from cheating on her husband who is away. Khojisteh had killed another parrot for refusing her to go see the man across the street, so in order to avoid being killed, the parrot makes her think that he agrees that she should go see the man. However, he gives her advice in the way of different stories that keep her up all night. He ends the story when the sun comes up because she cannot go over there during the daylight. He does this several times. The story that I rewrote was called, The Fowler, the Parrot, and her Young Ones. I changed the name of the wife to Karlie because Khojisteh is quite frankly just a difficult name. Other than that, I kept the plot line of the story and just changed small details.
Bibliography:
The Tooti Nameh or Tales of a Parrot,
by Ziya'al-Din Nakhshabi (1801).
Katelynn, great job on this storytelling post! This reminds me of the unit I read this week, Arabian Nights, in which a woman named Scheherazade tells a sultan stories to avoid being killed (the sultan is a very unreasonable person). This post definitely made me more interested in reading more tales that the clever parrot tells--I had never really read any frametales before this class, but I really like the story-within-a-story setup. Overall, great job sticking to the original and keeping the essence of the story!
ReplyDeleteI also read the Arabian Nights Unit and at first thought you were referring to Scheherazade keeping herself alive by telling stories to the king. I did not know there was a unit about just Parrot Tales. Your story definetly has me intrigued into the unit and what other stories are included in the unit. I think you did a great job expanding on the story and making it your own. You brought it into the "real life" of a woman knowing it was a "booty call" and weighing her options. I bet some people wish they had a story telling parrot who would keep them from cheating on their husbands. Great job!
ReplyDeleteKatelynn,
ReplyDeleteI really wanted to read this unit particularly for this story. So, I am happy I chose to read yours so that I could get a gist of the story. I really liked how you made your version a bit more modern. I like the idea behind the parrot's stories. I am very against adultery, so I like the parrot's diversion tactics to keep the woman faithful to her husband.
Linzee Manor
This is a very good unit and it made me wish I had read it! I love the retelling of the story because I felt pretty distracted myself! You kept the story interesting and added your own modern life details which really brings subtle, but important twists to the retelling. Putting stories in the modern world, with booty calls and more, creates a way for us to relate in some fashion. What an awesome parrot keeping her out of trouble!
ReplyDelete