The Eagle and Her Human Son
Once upon a time, there was a small village that was just on the outskirts of a large forest. This small village was the home to many humans, while the forest was home to hundreds of animals. One day some other villagers came to the village burning it all down to the ground. All the villagers began to flee in order to save their own lives. In the midst of the crisis, there was something very special left behind.
A young eagle mother was flying above watching the horrible event take place and after all the people had vanished she decided to get closer and check out the scene to look for leftover food for her children. As she was scavenging around she heard a sound, but it was unlike any other animal sound she had heard. She followed the sound and to her surprise, found a very small baby boy that had been left behind in the village. The eagle was unsure what she was to do at first, but being a mother she knew the only choice she had was to bring this baby home.
Many years passed and the infant was now a young boy. He played with his other eagle brothers everyday and loved his eagle mother. He lived in the nest with his family. On one particular day, the young boy was in the nest playing with his siblings when they heard something below them in forest. There was a man climbing up their own tree looking for pine cones. The gatherer noticed the young boy in the nest and was beyond confused. The young boy was terrified, he had nowhere to go. Unlike his siblings, the young boy could not fly. The gatherer grabbed the boy and took him with him. The boy cried and screamed. He was so frightened this man was going to hurt him. The mother eagle tried to stop the gatherer but did not have enough strength to fly as far as he rode on his horse.
The gatherer returned to his village with the young boy and gave him to his wife. The gatherer's wife was as sweet as can be and she had wanted to be a mother for so long and this finally gave her her chance.
Many years passed again and the young boy now had grown up into a man. The man was now a gatherer for his village. One day he headed out to gather some berries and other foods for his village and he ended up near the tree he had once lived in. At the time he did not quite remember why it looked so familiar but when he approached the tree he heard a whimper of some sort. The gatherer found an eagle on the ground below the tree with an injured wing and the second they made eye contact they both knew who the other was, for the mother could never forget her son.
The man said, "As you once cared for me, I will now care for you." He returned to his village with his eagle mother and continued to care for her until her passing.
From this point on the man passed this story down to his children and so forth: eagles are to always be respected by humans.
Author's Note: The story I used as my guide for this story was "The Wolf Mother of Saint Ailbe." The story is similar in the fact that a young wolf mother finds a young boy and takes him into her care. The young boy is taken by a hunter and is raised in a village. When he comes back into contact with his wolf mother he declares that all wolves are to be respected and not hunted. The boy never forgot his wolf mother just like in this story. I loved this story because it showed an amazing bond between human and animal. I am a huge animal lover so I used this story to help me come up with my own. Instead of a wolf I chose an eagle and I chose the boy to have a different life instead of being a Saint. I used a forest and a village, instead of a mountain and a kingdom but overall it had very similar themes. The main theme of these stories is to show the love between an animal and a human. The original story had people from the village hunting the wolves but in my story I had the human find his old animal caretaker where he used to live. I kept the endings the same where the human now takes care of the animal that once took care of them when they had no one and were on the verge of death. In the end both animals end up back with their young human they loved so much. Both stories have happy endings and portray bonds between human and animal.
Bibliography: "The Wolf Mother of Saint Ailbe" By: Abbie Farwell Brown