Storytelling Week 3: The Horse and His Rider

The Horse and His Rider (From the Ass and His Driver)

There once was a horse named Jack.  He was a stubborn little quarter horse that has been traveling his whole life.  Day after day and night after night Jack traveled the same roads.  It was a sunny Saturday morning and Jack was chosen to deliver a very important package to the leader of his village.  His rider, Flynn, takes these missions very seriously and will not let anything stand in the way of him delivering this important message.

Needless to say, Flynn was not the nicest person in the village so he treated Jack very poorly.  Flynn bossed and he bossed Jack around until he couldn’t handle it any longer.  “Go this way! Now go that way! No do this!” exclaimed Flynn to Jack.

As they climbed up the tallest mountain in the village to deliver the package to the leader, Jack couldn’t listen to one more word that Flynn was telling him and he was fed up with walking the same roads over and over again.  Jack thought to himself about his dreams and all the other things and beautiful sights that the world has to offer.

With a cliff up ahead, Jack only had one thing on his mind and he wasn’t going to stray from that.  He wanted to look over the cliff to see the most beautiful views of the village from the tip top of the mountain.  As Flynn and Jack walked closer and closer to the cliff, Flynn knew Jack was going to stop listening to him because he started to disobey his orders.  Flynn hopped off the little horse and started pulling Jack towards the middle of the mountain and away from the cliff.  Although Jack was little, he sure was strong and he out-pulled Flynn and tumbled down the cliff. 

Fortunately, and little did Flynn know,  Jack landed in a giant hill of hay and he was finally free from any duties! Jack could now follow his dreams to venture out and explore the world like he always wanted to do.

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Author's Note:  I loved reading these tales.  They were a quick and enjoyable read and really kept my attention.  Out of all the tales I read, this one stuck out to me the most because it made me laugh and I thought it taught a good lesson about listening to others and the importance of not being too stubborn.  The story I wrote is much different than the original story because I changed the driver to portray someone that would be looked at as a "bad guy" and the horse (which was a donkey in the original) was the "good guy" in the story. It still has the same moral as the original until the very end when the horse actually ends up being free from his stubborn ways so that worked out to his advantage.  The characters differ slightly but the main thing that I changed for this story was the perspective. I wanted to change the characters mainly to create a more modern situation.  In our culture today, we are more used to hearing about horses rather than asses or donkeys.  I also changed the viewpoint at which the story was told because when I was reading the story I felt bad for the donkey and I wondered what made him want to go his own path and tumble down the cliff.