Once upon a time, in the town of Mooville, there was a crowd
of wild young Cows. They rampaged the
fields, ravaged the food supply, and drained the winery on a nightly
basis. The farmer was just about fed up
when he came up with a plan to make the Cows calm down. If the Cows realized where their selfishness
could lead, maybe they wouldn’t destroy Mooville.
One night, as the Cows were celebrating as usual, they heard
the clanging of a cowbell. Since they
had all removed theirs before the celebrations commenced, they were curious
where it was coming from. Three Cows in
particular began to tipsily follow the sound of the bell. They stumbled and bumbled until they encountered
the farmer on his tractor, dragging a Cow along behind him.
“What are you doing?” one cow slurred.
“Oh, this Cow went a celebratin’ a couple towns over in
Moomania,” the farmer calmly replied. “Unfortunately,
he met that sly old thief Death came along and killed him. He kills lots a people thereabouts. Takes a rather keen Cow to trick old Death. Unfortunately, this Cow could not.”
The three Cows rallied their spirits and decided that they
were more than smart enough to defeat Death.
They set off towards Moomania and along the way, they encountered a
poor, withered old Cow. This Cow wove
them a tale about his own encounters with Death. By the end of the tale, the three reveling
Cows were enthralled and demanded to know where they could meet Death. The old
Cow simply pointed down the road, where it split in two.
The three Cows raced, as well as tipsy Cows can race,
towards the fork in the road that was the home of Death. When they reached it, they found a pile of
golden cowbells! They turned to see the old Cow, but he had disappeared. In their drunkenness, the tipsy Cows did not
even question his disappearance.
Of course, the golden cowbells needed to be split between
the three of them but they also needed a way to carry it back to Mooville.
Clearly they could not travel during the day, since someone might see them and
want to take their cowbells.
They came up with a plan.
The fastest of the three, who also happened to be the least drunk, was
to go to Moomania and fetch some satchels as well as some food and drink for
the three of them. Then they would spend
the day with the golden cowbells before traveling back to Mooville.
The one Cow set off for Moomania and the remaining two sat
down to rest. As they were sitting, they
began to think. Why should they split
the gold between three, when they could easily split it between two? The two
sitting Cows came up with a plan. When the
runner returned, they would overpower him and take the gold for
themselves.
Of course, what the running Cow had the same idea. Why should he share the gold when he could
take it all for himself? He decided that he would poison two of the wine
bottles and take the golden cowbells back to Mooville himself.
Now, you know what they say about the best laid plans. And remember that this is a story about Cows that
went in search of Death.
So, when the running Cow returned, the two sitting Cows
immediately jumped him. One pinned him
down while the other knocked him over the head with a rock and he never moved
again. The two remaining Cows sat down
to celebrate their success, cracking open the food and wine that the runner had
brought back. As soon as the wine
touched their lips, they fell down dead alongside their comrade.
These Cows had gone in search of Death and Death had found
them first!
Author’s Note:
For this week’s storytelling, I rewrote The Pardoner’s Tale:The Revelers. I followed the original
story for the most part, although I did cut out quite a few details. The general story line is the same
though. I have no idea where my idea of
replacing the revelers with Cows came from.
There were no cows in sight, I wasn’t drinking milk, I really don’t
know! But it sounded like a great idea
at the time. Now that I’m done with it, I’m
not so sure, but who really cares!
Bibliography: “The Pardoner’s Tale: The Revelers” from The
Chaucer Story Book by Eva March Tappen (1908).
