Storytelling: Week 9: The North Wind

There’s nothing better than the cold, icy wind of winter.  Those icicles everywhere around you and the beautiful color of white fills the Earth.  I am the reason why the earth is so amazingly filled with snow throughout every sun and moon.  There are very few in my land so that makes my job of ruling the land even easier!  I’m not much of a people person.  You see, my brother is the ruler of the summer with all the colors, and plants, and animals, and blah, blah, blah.  I’m so tired of everyone talking about how much they love the summer.  Growing up, no one wanted to talk to me because everyone thought I was cold.  It was my brother that had all the attention and friends.  I never thought it was fair as a child, but there was nothing I could do about it.  I don't want to be the ruler of summer. That weather makes me cringe and there's always way too much going on, too much to handle.  So now, I choose to live alone by myself and I’m loving every minute of it.

After many years of enjoying my life alone and isolated, a fisherman entered my land and overstayed his welcome.  I do not like visitors, and I like to keep the icy land to only me and the fishes under the ice-covered oceans.  This fisherman not only stayed on my icy land for far too long even after I covered him in heavy snow and ice, but he also cut holes in my icy-covered waters to catch my fish. No one comes to my land and messes up my perfectly smooth oceans.  No one comes and steals all my fish either. 

I had to do something to get him out of here, but I have never had anyone try to withstand my powerful and brutally frigid winds.  So I began to make the snow even deeper and deeper and the wind stronger and stronger.  Surely he would leave after his whole body was covered in frost bite. 

I woke up the next day and the fisherman was still there in his tent with a giant fire to keep him warm.  This was a tougher challenge.  So I spent that whole day blowing giant gusts of freezing winds towards him.  Maybe I could blow out the fire that kept him warm? Those fires always scare me anyways.  Maybe I could blow away his tent so he won't have a place to keep him safe? I didn’t care what I have to do. I just wanted him off my land. 

The next sun when the fisherman was still standing firm on my land, we began to fight.  His fire was making me melt and warm up.  I like to stay cold and that is when I am the most powerful.  I couldn’t let him beat me on my own turf.  Pretty soon, I could not fight any longer.  I had to surrender because I had no other choice.  My weak breath could not fight for one second longer.  I watched him stay there and fish on my land while I lay there on my ice and couldn’t do anything about it.

This was the day I was finally overtaken.

Author's Note:

 This is from the original American Indian Fairy Tale, Shin-ge-bis Fools the North Wind. I really enjoyed all the stories from this unit because I felt like each story was so creative. This is what they believed actually happened and how the seasons were created.   I took this story and portrayed it from the point of view of the North Wind.  The North Wind was the bad guy in the original story because he was doing everything he could to keep the tribe off his land in the winter, but all they wanted to do was fish for food so they would not be hungry.  It wasn't until one day that a fisherman stood up to the North Wind and finally overtook him.  His whole tribe told him not to do it because no one had successfully defeat the North Wind, but he was determined and nothing could stop him.  I kept the general story the same but changed the point of view from the fisherman to the North Wind.  I took out a few parts to really focus on the scenes that I felt were the most entertaining and imperative.  I tried to keep the Native American appeal by putting the focus on the land and the wind rather than something that was not earth-related.  As I read this story, I kept picturing the abominable snowman so I chose an image to portray how I pictured the story.

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Bibliography:
"Shin-ge-bis Fools the North Wind" by W.T. Larned. American Indian Fairy Tales Unit.