Week 10 Storytelling: Hunter's (Not Quite) Delight

I had always had a passion for hunting. The game of sneaking through the forest and searching for animals had always been a thrilling exercise for me. However, because of the busy life I lived, I often times could not actually fulfill my desire to hunt.

However, one night, I got my chance. Everyone was sleeping, and I did not have anything that I needed to do in the morning. Well… anything important, that is. So, I decided to sneak off and find a plump thrush or hare in the woods. I’d had a bad feeling about it, you know, the kind that you get before something out of your control happens. But, I pushed it off. I was a warrior, so whatever happened to me would most likely be something I could fight off anyways.

I had my bow in hand, and I was deep in the woods. Hearing something to my left, I attempted to pinpoint it. However, whatever it was, it was gone before I could find it. Crouching down further, I closed my eyes and tried to hone my senses—my warrior senses—hoping that I could find something that was near to me. I could not return to my bed tonight without getting a kill; that would just be embarrassing, after all.

Hearing a river that was not too far off, I crept towards it. I expected that I would be able to find an animal there, quenching their thirst under the clear sky of the night. And there I saw buck, beautiful and marvelous, so I quickly grabbed an arrow from my quiver and I took a shot. But, some loud noise in the bushes behind the magnificent creature scared it off.

With a groan, I stepped closer to the water. Rats, what was so big in those woods that it was able to scare off my prey? Then, I heard a noise again. And the being did in fact sound rather large. It was also coming out of the woods, close to me. I don’t know what came over me then. It could have been fear, maybe panic. Whatever it was, I’m not sure. But what I do know, is that I panicked for a moment before pulling out another arrow and shooting in the direction of that noise.

I heard something drop to the ground, and went to find what it was, but a voice stopped me. Some old man was yelling in the woods.

“My cow! Oh, my poor cow, who could do such a thing to my blessed cow?”

Realizing I had made a mistake—a very bad mistake—I ran deeper into the woods to where the man was. Before me was a hermit, kneeling next to a cow that was bleeding out. He was visibly upset, and turned to give me one of the most horrifying looks of anger that I have received even to this day. I opened my mouth to apologize, but he cut me off before I could say anything.

“I curse you!” He cried. “One day, while you are in the middle of a moment very critical to your life, the earth will open up and swallow one of the wheels of your chariot.”

Taken aback, I tried to apologize, offer him a new cow, money, anything. However, he accepted none of it. I did in fact feel quite bad about the idea, but nothing I did would console or please the man. So, I walked away and returned to my bed, now cursed and regretful. Maybe I should have listened to my gut feeling, and stayed in my bed tonight.

Image Information: A Cow; Web Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Author's Note:

I love reading stories about Karma, and if you’ve read my Storybook then you know I also like telling them. So, when I read in The Mahabharata about how Karna was cursed by a hermit, I wanted to tell it. In the epic, Karna goes out hunting and accidentally shoots a cow, so the owner of the cow whom was a hermit grows so angry that he lays a curse on Karna for killing his beloved cow. I know that cows are sacred in India, so killing a cow would lead to much more negative Karma than just from the old man.

I wanted to tell the story in a first-person narrative so that we could see why Karna was out hunting in the first place. I also wanted to show why he accidentally killed the cow, and that it was in fact an accident. It reminded me of another Storytelling I did from The Ramayana.

Bibliography:

• Story Based Off Of Narayan, R. K. (1978). The Mahabharata.
• Image Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons