Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Week 13, Storytelling, Sons of Padma

This is the story of Skye Hallaby. 

Skye was born in a small town just north of Nowhere, somewhere in the farmlands of what use to be a piece of someplace called the United States or something.  She was a young woman of sixteen years and lived with seven other young women on a small farm, cared for by a farmer and his wife.  Skye had no family, she had no brothers, no sisters, and her parents had died when she was very young.  Everyone knew this.

One day when she was out walking with the other girls they came across a small pond that contained two koi fish. In this time, where Skye lived, times were hard and she thought these fish would be great to bring home to the farmers that cared for her.  So she grabbed up the fish and took them back home with her.  Unfortunately after she stashed them in a pot they somehow turned into snakes.  However, Skye was not a girl who scared easily and in fact she began to care for the snakes. 

She moved the snakes and their pot from the kitchen into the barn, but when they were found she moved them again and again trying to find a spot for them.  She continued to care for these snakes, feeding them and giving them milk.  Even when the farmer and his wife begged her to let them go she continued to care for them.

Then one day, a messenger arrived with a letter for Skye. The letter read like this:

“Dear Skye,
You do not know us because we left before you were born, but we are your bothers.  Our names are Jonas and James and we have searched for a long time for you.  We are writing to you to invite you to come and live with us in our home and become one as a family again.  I realize this is a lot to ask since you have no knowledge of us, but should you wish to do so we will be arriving in a couple of days to escort you to our home.  If you do not wish to do so that is your prerogative, but we hope that you should like to get to know us and us know you.

Sincerely,
Jonas and James Hallaby.”

Skye read this and became very excited, she didn’t hate her life here with the farmers, but this was a real family, her flesh and blood!  So she waited impatiently for the day when they would arrive and finally the day came when two men and an escort of guards approached.  Skye quickly packed her few possessions and went to grab her pot that contained the snakes, but when she looked inside, they had vanished.  She wondered at this and realized suddenly who they were; they were children of Padma, the great mother of snakes.  With this realization Skye grew very humble and thanked Padma for granting her the family she had always dreamed of.

She left with her brothers that day and lived a long and happy life with many fruitful meals and a roof always over her head.




Author's note:
I adapted this story from the story of Padma's ceremony tale from Neogi's Sacred Tales of India.  The original story has this girl Lahana who is married to one of the seven sons of a farmer.  She finds the koi fish and wants to cook them but they turn into snakes.  She cares for the snakes who are actually the sons of Padma, who is considered the mother of snakes.  The two snakes then return to Padma and ask her to make Lahana their sister. Now this is where I stopped my story, but in the original story it continues to where the snake brothers influence a king to make Lahana a royal family member.

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