Once there lived an old frail man who lived on the edges of the jungle. This old man had no way to feed himself as he was so weak. The other men in the village provided him with a portion of their catch from the hunting done that day so that he would survive. This happened every day for some time. The old man continued to become weaker and weaker as the days passed but still the villagers helped as he was the wisest soul amongst the village.
One day, after the hunting had been completed, a young villager knocked on the old man's door. As he opened the door he could see that the young hunter was bringing more than his day's meal. Laying by the hunter's side was a lion cub that could only be a few weeks old. The boy explained that he thought the old man could use some company as he knew that he lived alone. The old man graciously accepted the boy's gift and thanked him.
As time passed, the lion got bigger and stronger. It got larger and larger until it was bigger than any lion the villagers had ever seen. It assisted the hunters of the village in their daily hunts and routinely brought back more and more meat than the village had ever seen at one time. Even with the lion's contributions, there were rumblings among many villagers that he was getting too big and that he would one day turn on them and kill the village in its entirety.
The worries reached a peak as one night a group of villagers decided to wait till the lion fell asleep for the night and sneak up and kill him. As the men crept through the trees to stalk the lion they heard a mighty roar from behind. As they turned to run, a monster larger and scarier than they could imagine emerged from the jungle and gave chase.
The ruckus wakened the sleeping lion of the village with a startle. With heightened senses, the lion ran to the noises with tremendous power. The cries and screams mixed with the cracking of giant trees led the lion to garner even more power as he flew across the jungle floor.
When he arrived at the scene, he saw what was causing the fear throughout the village. With reckless abandon for his own safety, the lion attacked the ferocious monster with all he had. As the lion and monster stayed locked in bloodshed the group that led the ambush of the lion knew they had made a terrible mistake. Not only would the lion never have harmed them, he would give up his life to protect them.
This thought propelled the villagers to cast aside their fears and pick up their weapons and join in the fight. After countless time had passed, the villagers and their giant lion were victorious and they set about rebuilding their village with a renewed sense of pride and confidence.
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Author's Note: This story was adapted from
The Woman Who Had a Bear as a Foster-Son found in
Eskimo Folk-Tales by Knud Rusmussen with illustrations by native Eskimo artists (1921). In the original story, an old woman receives a bear cub as a gift. She raises the cub as her own as it gets larger and stronger. Eventually, the bear becomes to strong for even the adults in the village to play with. The bear begins to hunt with the village but members of other villagers begin to try and kill the bear when they see him out hunting. One night, the bear brings home a body of dead man and the old woman must tell the bear to leave the village or else other villages would come and do them all great harm. I decided to use a lion from the jungle as the main character mostly just to give a change of scenery. I also added the part where the villagers became scared of the lion because I feel like if I was in the situation I would have a legitimate fear of a giant lion. I also added the happy ending of the lion fending off a great foe to the village because I had expected that to be the ending of the original and feel like it is a better ending then the lion being exiled from the village.
