Week 3 Storytelling: Sammy's Sly Move

(The Lion, the Bear and the Fox illustration by Milo Winter 1919)

He had been searching for dinner for hours. He swore that it felt like years. Last time he ate was early in the morning and it was practically nothing. Jim, the lion, and Geoffrey, the bear, had been hunting all of his prey. They had just moved into the area rather recently and it was quite hard on Sammy, the fox.

Sammy has always been used to living practically alone. There was always plenty of game for him to eat and he could roam wherever he pleased without question. He loved it. It was absolutely perfect, that is, until they moved in.

It wasn't so bad when it was just Jim. Jim was really nice and always made sure that Sammy had enough food to eat. Jim want the lion that everyone really liked being around. He was fun, friendly, and didn't change the way the forrest was. Things stayed the same when Jim moved in; however, that all changed when Geoffrey came.

Geoffrey was Jim's rival. They used to be friends when they were little. They were tighter than any knot. In all honesty, no one really knows why they became enemies, but they knew that is wasn't good for the forrest. Geoffrey made Jim paranoid, bitter, and insanely mean. They constantly fought. So how does Sammy play into this?

He lived between them.

That's right, Sammy was the unfortunate neighbor between the two rivals. And he hated it. All of his roaming was monitored by Jim and Geoffrey, as both were worried that the other had sent Sammy to spy on them. All of the prey that Sammy used to get was being captured and eaten by the rivals to spite one another. They bullied each other, and in the end Sammy was the one most affected by it.

So that leads us to today, where Sammy is searching for his dinner in hope that neither of them caught the stray kid he saw last night.

In the midst of his search, Sammy heard loud grunting and yelling. He kept trying to ignore it, but as he searched for his prey, the noises got louder and louder. So, of course, Sammy decided to check it out.

He went over to the bushes where the noises seem to be coming from and peeked through the branches to have a look. Not to his surprise, Geoffrey and Jim were at it again! They were fighting constantly and he was getting sick of it. He was about to turn around, give up on hunting, and go home, but he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

He poked his head out a bit further and saw that the animal he had been until was lying next to Jim and Geoffrey. He was so happy that he almost shouted with joy, but he didn't want to bring his presence to Jim and Geoffrey's attention.

This gave Sammy a brilliant idea. He would sneak over to the animal, grab it and then as quiet as possible, he would leave. He assumed that Jim and Geoffrey would never notice as long as he was quiet, because often they fought for hours or days.

So with the brilliant idea in mind, Sammy decided to do it. He did it before he could talk himself out of it. He snuck out of the branches, grabbed the stray kid and swiftly snuck back. He succeeded.

Author's note: My story is based on the Aesop's Story of The Lion, the Bear and the Fox. The story focuses on two animals that argue over prey, but both miss out in the end. In the original story, the Lion and the Bear notice that the Fox had taken away the stray kid and agree that they should have just shared it. The original story is quite short.

The reason I chose this story is because I really liked that the fox was able to sneak prey away from two animals that were much larger than him. Foxes are much smaller in comparison and because of this, I decided to focus my story on the fox. After picking what point of view I wanted in the story, I decided to make the fox more sly and assume that it was his prey that he was stealing back and would not get caught.

I used the illustration from the original story.  Without this illustration, I honestly would have been less likely to use this story. This image, in my mind, helps the reader picture how clever the fox is, and how he was able to get away with the prey so easily.

The Aesop for Children, with illustrations by Milo Winter (1919).