A young boy is with his mom who has fear, likely that someone might break in. The child asks what fear is, but her explanation of it doesn't suffice so he sets out on a journey to find it. He comes across robbers, the living dead, abusive maids, and a Daughter of the Sea but nothing seems to scare him. Along, the way, the abusive maid drops a bracelet, he picks it up, and a Jew tries to claim it. He takes it to court but neither can prove possession over it. He finds three transforming pigeons/maids that talk about how they are impressed with his lack of fear and how they were the manifestations of all the bad things he had encountered so far and give him a second bracelet which he uses to win over the first bracelet from the judge. The town's king dies and a crowd of people tell the boy that when a pigeon is released, whoever's head it lands on they will be pronounced the new king. The pigeon lands on the boy's head, but he doesn't accept. They release a second pigeon and it also lands on his head but he once again rejects the throne, saying he not looks to be a king but find fear. The same thing happens a third time and while he resists, the widow of the king says he is the new king and tells him whoever is king one day will be the next a corpse. They make a casket for the boy, he sleeps in it, then burns it when he wakes up. The king's corpse is carried by slaves but it turns out he is not actually dead and to celebrate a live sparrow is put in the soup dish for supper. The boy is commanded to lift the dish of the soup, the sparrow flies out, he is shocked, the former widow tells him he experienced fear, and they live happily ever after.
I have to admit, this story was awful. Usually you are supposed to choose a story that you liked, but I chose this because I wanted to clean it up a lot. I think I will take this story, have it be in modern times, and have the kid not be scared by anything except the fury of his mother when he disobeys her and the moral of the story will be to not disrespect your mom because if there is one thing in this world that is to be feared it is a mother's fury.
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| Mom Power sourced via Pixabay |
Bibliography
Fear by Ignacz Kunos
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