Week 1 Storytelling: Think Before you Ask

Pavlin soared through the air while dipping and twisting in the refreshing summer breeze. He climbed as high as he could only to let gravity take hold of him in an adrenaline pumping dive. Pavlin loved the time he spent in the air instead of on the ground with the other birds from the farm. He didn't feel alive down there as he did when he was in the sky letting the wind drift between his feathers. The other birds treated him differently. They all had colorful draping tail feathers or a memorizing checkered coat. Palvin just had plain gray feathers. He wanted the other birds to gaze at him in wander as he did towards them. He wanted to be unique.

(Summer Sky: Wikimedia Commons)

 As the sun started to set, Palvin became aware of his exhaustion after hours of soaring through the sky dreaming about beautiful glossy feathers. He started his decent towards the farm and his warm nest in the birdhouse for a well-deserved rest. As Palvin was getting close to landing he heard a gentle voice. "Palvin," Juno cooed. "Palvin, because you are my favorite of all the birds and because you so desperately want others see your external beauty, I will grant you your wish," Juno told him. "When you wake up in the morning, you will have the most extraordinary tail feathers any one has ever seen," she said.

Palvin was overwhelmingly excited! He rushed into the barn and restlessly settled in for the night. The next morning as Palvin stood up an yawned, his back end felt excessively heavy. He jerked his head around and saw the most glorious display of feathers he had ever witnessed and they were HIS! He rushed outside and expanded his tail feathers so that everyone could see his new found beauty. The roosters and chickens gazed with astonishment at the beautiful and colorful array of long feathers before them.

(Pretty Peacock)

Palvin cried out with glee and jumping into the air with the intentions of showing off his new tail to the rest of the world. He made it about ten feet before falling back to the earth. Confused, Palvin tried again and again until it finally hit him - he couldn't soar through the skies anymore. He couldn't fly. Plavin had exchanged the thing he loved most because he wanted to be the most magnificent bird only in terms of looks. He had to live out the rest of his life dragging his mistake behind him and jealously watching the other birds in the sky.


Authors Note: I used the fable, "The Peacock," to write my storytelling post this week. To make the story a little more fun to get into, I gave the peacock in the fable the name Palvin, which translated to peacock. In this fable, the peacock originally did not have the beautiful feathers that we see today. Juno had granted him the feathers after having been begged to do so by the peacock. At first the peacock seemed happy with his new found beauty, but when he realized he had lost his ability to soar through the skies, he was distraught. I kept with that same general theme, but changed the begging to Juno into Juno watching Palvin in the skies dreaming about beautiful feathers and then granting that wish.

Bibliography:
"The Peacock" by Aesop, from Aesop's Fables (2006). Web Source: Aesop's Fables