Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2014 - 8

from the
farm

Text and images by elizabeth hunter

Foundations
MAY The sTories And fAbles of childhood ThAT helped forM oUr
pATTerns of life conTinUe To GenTlY sTeer neW GenerATions.

A damaged tiger swallowtail (left) and helpless fawn impart lessons of hope and tolerance, respectively.

tedious, time-consuming tasks
like taking care of raspberries - tying
up the canes, picking berries, then
pruning out the spent canes once the
harvest is over - provide me with
lengthy stretches of uninterrupted
time to think things over. Lately, I've
been thinking about stories that last
our lifetimes, and the part they play in
our lives.
For most of my neighbors, the
Bible was the source for such stories.
For me, it was "From Long Ago and
Many Lands," a collection of very old
stories, some biblical, some fables,
compiled from many sources by
Sophia Lyon Fahs in 1948. Although
the book contains some familiar tales
- the Blind Men and the Elephant and
the Wind and the Sun, about a contest to see which could remove a
man's cloak - some are stories I have
never encountered elsewhere. They
all teach lessons, as, for instance, a
8 | BlueRidgeCountry.com

Sicilian tale about an abandoned and
starving horse that inadvertently rings
the town of Atri's Bell of Justice by
chewing on its bellrope. In the tribunal that follows, the horse's owner, a
knight interested only in counting his
money, sees the error of his ways, and
readmits the horse to his barn and the
estate's lush pastureland. That was
one of my favorites.
As was one from China, about travelers who go in search of the "Land of
Great Men," where they're surprised
to find that, in a place that otherwise
resembles their homeland, each person walks on a small colored cloud
that reflects his or her disposition
toward others. Most desirable are rainbow-colored clouds; least, gray or
black ones. The travelers see a beggar
(and many others) with rainbow-colored clouds, but the high official the
crowd makes way for has draped a silk
cloth over his cloud to hide its color,

fooling no one.
Then there's the Ugandan story of
"The Two Cheats," about two merchants in a marketplace, one selling
bark cloth, the other fried ants, a local
delicacy. Under a top layer of the real
thing, each has bundled worthless
byproduct. At the end of the day, neither having sold his wares, they make
a trade, each thinking he has fooled
the other. Because neither wants his
deceit discovered by the other, they
scurry off in different directions before
opening the bundles and learning that
they've been had.
Only one story in the collection - a
good one, from India - no longer
"works." In it, a distraught woman
whose baby son has died, goes from
house to house begging for medicine
that will cure him. No one can help her,
until someone tells her to go see the
Buddha, then alive and teaching, who
says he can cure her child if she brings

http://www.BlueRidgeCountry.com

Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2014