The Animal Tales! • The Eleventh of Several Fables

11. In the Mouth

A fable that follows: The Higher the Horse

“You shouldn’t have got out that cider,” said the farmer’s wife. “That horse shouldn’t have drunk it,” the farmer answered. “You’ll regret selling her,” she said. That evening, a neighbor stopped by having a very long snout. (The fox meant to get rid of that horse.) “Hello, Farmer,” he said, “I’ll take that horse off your hands for six chickens!”

“You will not!” interrupted the farmer’s wife. “Sold!” insisted the farmer, and he gave the fox six chickens and the horse. “A bargain if there ever was one!” said the farmer. The fox was no fool, though. He sniffed at the horse’s mouth just to be sure she hadn’t been drinking that cider! All the while, that horse knew perfectly well it was the fox.

As soon as the fox climbed atop her she reared and ran round and around the barn. The fox let go of the chickens one by one. Then she ran faster and faster until the fox’s hat blew off, followed by his petticoat, his breaches and his socks until his bushy tail all but gave him away. The horse kicked and the fox tumbled into the air. The farmer’s wife smiled archly.

“Never look a miffed horse in the mouth!”

The Animal Tales! • The Tenth of Several Fables

10. The Higher the Horse

A fable that follows: No Death Worse

“Fox, fox fox!” said the farmer, disgusted.  “I’ll chase him down!”  Out he went one day and bought the fastest race horse he could find. The farmer’s wife doted on the horse, feeding her apples and cabbage. The very next day, and the day after that, the farmer almost caught the fox. “Ha!” said the farmer. “I have outwitted that fox! Me! Don’t talk to me about how to catch a fox!”

The farmer was so pleased with himself that he pulled out two barrels of old cider to celebrate. The fox was in no mood to celebrate. A week without chickens! He knocked over the two barrels when the farmer wasn’t looking and the horse drank every last drop.  Never did a horse have such a head-ache! And that night, when the farmer leapt atop her, bellowing for her to chase the fox, she gave such a kick that she sent the farmer straight through the barn roof.

As luck would have it, the seat of the farmer’s pants caught the topmost branch of the apple tree.  The animals came and went the next morning. “Such an ugly apple,” they said. “Like a pear with pants.” “It will be a bad year for apples,” said the farmer’s wife. “Don’t you think so, husband?” The animals saw the lesson a little more clearly.

“The higher your horse, the harder its kick.”

Be it known that this fable is followed by: In the Mouth

Another Poet & Children’s Writer

Just noticed a new netizen blogger – Karin Gustafson. I like her for three reasons. First, she writes traditional poetry, which is to say, she tests herself against the disciplines of rhyme, meter and form.  Second, she writes children’s stories. I do too. In fact, I have a Master’s Degree in Children’s Literature. So.. I really do like this art form. Third, she writes fun posts and has the same last name as a favorite high school teacher (way back when). Her latest post is Subway Sonnet (as of Sept. 24, 2009).

She dispenses with meter, but almost keeps to the rhyme scheme of the typical Shakespearean Sonnet. What she experiments with (which is why I say almost to the rhyme scheme) is the number of lines. She adds a fifteenth “half line” to the sonnet. It’s only nominally a “half line”, since there’s no meter in the poem. If she had written the poem using Iambic Pentameter, for example, a half line, conventionally, would be Iambic Trimeter. As it is, the sonnet could either be a modified Shakespearean Sonnet (both because of the extra line and because there’s no meter) or a nonce sonnet (which is simply what you refer to a poem whose form is unique to the poem and the poem’s author). Here are the last lines:

Today, I’m by the sea,
and water, vaster than pools, sparkles
under light so immense it cannot be
broken down for parts, yet its particles
raise up the non-molecular part
of me, what refuses to lose heart,
no matter–

The sonnets volta (which not all sonnets have) is her shift between yesterday and today, between observation and a sort of philosophical summing up. Also, check out her sonnet Post-Eden, it’s quite good. As with the sonnet above, she dispenses with meter, but unlike that sonnet she retains the rhyme scheme of the Shakespearean Sonnet (there’s no half line).

For a poem written in 8 line stanzas of four rhyming couplets, check her post: The Burden of Specialness – Firely. She’s a new blogger. She’s a good poet. And did I mention she writes for children? A book she wrote and illustrated was published by Backstroke Books, called 1 Mississippi. So, if you’re looking for poetry, take a look at her blog. If you have kids learning to read, try out her book.

One last thing, if you love Robert Pattinson, the painfully soul-drenched vampire of Twilight, you will find a soul-mate in Gustafson. (She can be forgiven, my wife was also smitten by the smolder.)

I love Robert Pattinson.  I also love Walt Whitman, W.B. Yeats and Virginia Woolf, so please don’t judge me too harshly.   Though I’ve actually been quite amazed by my love for Pattinson.  It is not just his looks (okay, it’s his looks), but also an inherent, seeming, sweetness.   The casual smile, upturned lips, harassed hair, truly harassed self.

The Animal Tales! • The Ninth of Several Fables

9. No Death Worse

A fable that follows: What’s Sweetest

The wolf paced atop the hill. “Why should the fox eat well and not me?” After some thought he went to the magpie with a plan. The magpie would distract the farmer’s wife with talk while the wolf ate chickens. “What should I say?” the magpie wondered, trying one subject after another. The wolf answered: “That would do…” or “Yes, that will work…” or “That’s a very good subject…”; but ideas, for the magpie, were like fish out of water, impossible to hold.

The farmer’s wife heard the magpie halfway to the farmyard and well warned, she planned a little surprise. “I think I shall smoke ham today!” When the magpie arrived later, she found the farmer’s wife at laundry. She straightaway struck up a conversation with the woman as the wolf snuck into the coop.

Ham hung from the ceiling! The wolf jumped and jumped and jumped! The ham was strung too high and worse!—the coop was filling with smoke and worse!—the door had locked behind him! When the magpie finally returned to coop, she gabbed and gabbed about her gab with the farmer’s wife. How the wolf sweat! All night long he sweat and sweat as the magpie gabbed and gabbed! And the next morning, when the magpie finally thought to open the door, half the wolf had been smoked away! The animals shook their heads and said,

“No death worse than talked to death!”

Be it known that this fable is followed by: The Higher the Horse

The Animal Tales! • The Eighth of Several Fables

8. What’s Sweetest

A fable that follows: Cooked Goose

“I’m fed up!” said the goat. “Why should a horse get oat and barley? Clearly” he said to the dog, “the horse eats best.”

“Well… to every path its puddle,” answered the dog, speaking from experience. “Humph!” said the goat dismissively.

“Advice from a dog!” And so, that night, the goat snuck into the mare’s stall.  Before sunrise  (before there was enough light to know better) the farmer’s wife came out to feed and hitch the mare to the wagon.

“You feel thin, Bessy!” she said and she poured out a can of oat and barley. The goat ate several cans that way. But fortune frowned on the goat. The harness came next! “Why Bessy!” she said, tightening the harness, “you’re thin as a goat!” “Oof!” said the goat. Not until they were before the church did the first light of day reveal the poor goat!

The neighbors laughed themselves crooked. Church was canceled, the pastor saying: “There shall be no mirth before God!” The farmer and his wife dutifully frowned all the way home. The parched goat drank the farmyard dry and the barley in his belly plumped like a balloon. For two days that goat lay on his side. His rightward hooves pointed to heaven, the other hooves to the other place. His belly bloated for all the world between! “Ha!” said the other animals, “the lesson’s clear.”

“What’s sweetest is soonest bitter!”

Be it known that this fable is followed by: What’s Sweetest

❧The blockprint is by my daughter Juniper, Age 8.

The Animal Tales • The Seventh of Several Fables

7. Cooked Goose

A fable that follows: Greener Grass

The dog smarted from the fox’s tricks. So the dog spent the day studying the lives of the other animals and after much hind- and little fore-thought, he decided the goose led the best life. It did not wallow in mud. It did not have to pull the plow or the carriage. And it did not eat trash like the goat. And so the dog curled up with the geese that night, the same night the farmer’s wife thought her pillow seemed thin.

“I’ll be going to get some feathers tonight,” she said. “Nah,” said the farmer, “we’ll cook a goose tomorrow.” “I’ll just take a wingtip feather,” she answered, and out she went. She felt, in the dark for the softest feather.“Now that’s the feather!” she said when she found the dog’s tail. She yanked hard and merrily. “YELP!”  The dog took flight! “Humph! What an odd goose!” said the farmer’s wife and returned to bed.
As luck would have it, the dog leapt into the apple tree and  hung there by his mouth, afraid to let go. The animals came and went the next morning. “Such an ugly apple!” they said. “Like a plum with teeth!” said others. “Didn’t I say it would be a bad year for apples?” asked the farmer’s wife as she plucked a goose for cooking. When anyone came near, the dog abruptly wagged his tail (to keep it from being plucked again!) and does so to this day! Finally the dog tumbled out of the tree.

“Humph!” said he. “Better a dirty dog than a cooked goose!”

Be it known that this fable is followed by: What’s Sweetest: The Eighth of Several Fables!

The Animal Tales! • The Sixth of Several Fables

6. Greener Grass

A fable that follows: The Best Advice

“I’ve had enough of that bull’s temper!” said the farmer. “What will you do?” his wife asked. “I’ll buy an ox,” the farmer answered.  “Maybe an ox’s good temper will rub off on that bull.” And so that day he went to a neighbor’s auction and bought the sweetest tempered ox he could find.

Once home, the farmer pastured the ox in the field next to the bull’s. The bull paced back and forth, back and forth. ‘The grass is greener in that field!’ the old bull thought to himself. Why should he get the greener grass? By the end of the week he was stomping, snorting and pawing the ground. Still the ox paid no attention to the bull, making the old bull hotter and hotter.

All the while, with all his stomping on the grass, the old bull’s field was getting thinner and thinner. And having nothing to eat, the old bull himself grew as thin as his field. There was almost nothing left to him as well! “Well now,” said the farmer to the bony old bull, “you don’t look so mean any more. I’ll tell you the moral to this story!” he said. “No matter how green the grass next door,

“Envy won’t make your own grass grow.”

Be it known that this fable is followed by: Cooked Goose: The Seventh of Several Fables!

The Animal Tales! • The Fifth of Several Fables

5. The Best Advice

A fable that follows: A Pig out of Mud!

The farmer was plum out of ideas. He needed advice as to how to catch a fox. “And who will you ask?” his wife demanded. “It won’t be you!” answered the farmer irritably. “Sure as I know a thing or two,” she said, “an ounce of doing cures a pound of talk. You’ll see how far advice gets you!” “And I will!” retorted the farmer. Off he went! One neighbor told him one way, another neighbor told him another. And some said the opposite.

Late afternoon the farmer met a neighbor with a very long snout. “I know just how to catch a fox!” said this neighbor. “And how would that be?” asked the farmer. “I will tell you for the price of a chicken,” said the neighbor. So the farmer gave his long-snouted neighbor one chicken. That night the farmer tied some twine to a chicken’s toe and the other end to his own toe. That way, the neighbor had told him, you will know when the fox is stealing the chickens.

In the middle of the night, the fox retied that twine round a sleeping bull’s tale and bit the bull darn hard on its behind. Off the charged the bull and out came the farmer, bed and all, dragged behind him by the big toe! When the bedraggled farmer finally returned, days later, his wife said sweetly: “You know…”

“The best advice comes with no strings attached.”

Be it known that this fable is followed by: Greener Grass: The Sixth of Several Fables!

The Animal Tales! • The Fourth of Several Fables

4.  A Pig out of the Mud

A fable that follows: One Bad Apple!

“Sad!” said the duck to the cow, “a very sad story! Why, if we were pigs, we’d be living in mud!” They decided the pig deserved better, and so they pushed some apple crates together and made a little parlor. It was clean and tidy. They brought straw for bedding, made a pillow of leaves and decorated the walls with flowers. The animals congratulated themselves on their kindness and generosity.

The farmer and his wife returned from church. As soon as the mare was unhitched from the carriage and saw the pig’s new parlor she pricked her ears and stomped her hooves. “Why don’t we live in places like that?” she snorted. “All I have is a stall!” “Why should a pig? — a pig! — of all animals! — have its own house?” “You?” said the goose. “Why not me? Those are my feathers in the farmer’s pillow!” “Outrageous!” crowed the rooster. “Shouldn’t we all live like pigs!”

They marched that night into the farmer’s house. “What the heck!” the farmer cried and fired his gun. The animals fled but once they’d gathered their wits they went straight to the pig’s parlor. His straw was trampled, he had eaten the flowers and the leaves were scattered hither and anon. He had made his parlor into a pig’s sty. “Snort,” he said happily. Maybe the animals didn’t want to live like pigs after all.  “You can take the pig out of the mud,” they all said, “but—”

“You can’t take the mud out of a pig.”

Be it known that this fable is followed by: The Best Advice: The Fifth of Several Fables!

The Animal Tales! • The Third of Several Fables

3. One Bad Apple

A fable that follows: Where Luck Goes!

“Disgusting!” said the Magpie, riding atop the pig’s back. “Why would anyone want to eat chicken!” “Snort,” answered the pig. “Why,” said the Magpie, “if I weren’t so smart, I’d be a chicken too. Barbaric! Imagine eating me! And look at you eating those muddy apples! Who wants a muddy apple? Yuck!” And that was when the magpie pointed to all the shiny red apples at the top of the nearby apple tree. “Look!” said the magpie. “All you have to do is walk onto the roof of that shed and you can have as many shiny apples as you want!”

“Snort!” It was true! The pig wanted those apples! The pig climbed the barrels stacked next to the shed but with his very first cloven step on the tin roof, down he slid! Just as the pig was about tumble from the roof to the ground, he wrapped his tail round the lowest apple branch. And there he hung and hung. The animals came and went. “Such an ugly apple!” they said. “Like a peach with hooves!” said others. “It shall not be a good year for apples,” said the farmer’s wife. “Snort! Squeal! Snort!” squealed the pig. At last the branch broke and the pig landed on its nose, flat from that day forth; and its poor tail never uncurled. The lesson was all too clear.

“You can always shine a muddy apple.”

Be it known that this fable is followed by: A Pig Out of Mud: The Fourth of Several Fables!