“Girls! I’m going to the store!” called mother.
My sisters Ellie and Mary came running. “Do you girls want anything
from the store?” She asked all three of us. Ellie and Mary promptly listed off
at least twenty items each that they had to have. My mother then looked at me,
but I shook my head and said all I wanted were some fresh flowers to go on my
desk.
Two hours later mother arrived back at the house with bags
upon bags of things she had picked up. I searched around the bags for a little
but couldn’t find any flowers. When mother saw me searching she immediately
realized she had forgotten to buy me flowers. She apologized to me so many
times, and I told her it was ok, and that it wasn’t a big deal! She kept going
on about how bad she felt, and decided she was going to go pick me some fresh
ones from the forest that backed up to our house.
Another two hours went by, and I started to become very
nervous. Mother should have been back by now. The sun would set in an
hour. I decided I must go looking for
her.
I started off into the forest and just kind of wandered, not
knowing which way she chose to go. After a little bit I saw some beautiful
roses, and had the thought that maybe she was there picking some for me but got
distracted or something. As I was walking over to the roses I saw a figure that
appeared to be lying down. Silly mother must have decided to take a nap. It was
strange though because there was a nice house in the background. As I got
closer, though, she did not appear to be sleeping. There was a snake slithering
all around her.
As I walked over the snake appeared to see me and started to
slither towards me. I was a little frightened, but I needed to see if mother
was ok. The snake stopped me before I got there and told me that my mother had
been paralyzed in punishment for picking his flowers. I felt so terrible! Those
were my flowers! I begged the snake to wake her up because it was my fault. He
told me that if I completed a series of tasks for him he would give me the
anti-venom for my mother.
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| Snake From Wikipedia |
The first task was to clear out all of the leaves and twigs
that were strewn across his garden. That was easy enough, and I finished within
ten minutes. The next task was for her
to cook him a nice homemade meal. This took a little longer, but not terrible
long. I went inside the house and made him a nice plate of spaghetti and
meatballs with a salad on the side. The snake seemed to really enjoy it, and
then listed off my final task. It was to cut his head off with a sword. He
showed me where it was, and gave me the cure for mother in advance once I had
promise to do it. I was a little
hesitant because he did not seem all the bad, and I had never killed anything
before, but I went ahead and did it to save my mother. Once I was done I rushed
to mother and gave her the anti-venom. She started to wake up immediately!
AS mother was waking up I heard some rustling in the
background, so I turned around to see what was going on. Where I had chopped
the snake’s head off stood a beautiful man, and instead of the house there was
a castle. The man started walking towards me, and when he got there he
introduced himself as John. He said that my final task would be to marry him,
or my mother would not fully recover. I agreed.
It turned out John was a great husband! We had a big feast
and celebration after our wedding for all of our friends and family. My sisters
did not seem too happy for me, but mother was and that was all that mattered.
Today we are still happily married.
Author’s Note: I used The Three Roses as the original story.
In the original the mother finds the roses on the way back from market, and
realizes she forgot her daughter’s flowers, so she goes to pick some. After she does so a basilisk appears. And tells
her she must bring her daughter to him in payment for the roses. She goes home
and brings her back. The basilisk makes her go through a series of tasks, then
asks her to cut his head off. After she does so a snake appears, and asks her
to do the same. After she has cut off the head of the snake a man appears, and
tells her that the final task is to marry him. I chose to change the story a
bit and put my own spin with just the snake. I liked her doing his house chores
because I liked to think that the snake just needed a little help around the
house, since he could not do it himself.
Bibliography: The Three Roses from The Key of Gold by Josef Baudis (1922).
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