HUSH-A-BYE, baby, on the tree top;
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock;
When the bough bends, the cradle will fall;
Down will come baby, bough, cradle, and all.
(Original Nursery Rhyme)
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There once was a woman who had just become a new mommy. She
and her baby lived in Oklahoma, and it was spring time. The new baby would cry
all day and all night, only to be soothed by the sound of wind. Without any
electricity, the woman would sit outside with her child all day wishing for
wind gusts to sweep their way. On a day that there was no wind, the woman took
her baby to the doctor and the doctor gave some advice to hush the baby. “On a
stormy day, leave your baby outside and see if a tornado will cause her to
despise wind from then on” The mother was horrified. “Won’t that be a danger to
her life? I have heard many stories of tornados being ravenous to everything it
touches…” The doctor sighed and looked at the child. “This little one will not
stop crying until she hears wind that will scare her; a small tornado should do
the trick.” Reluctant but desperate, the mother left her baby girl outside one
afternoon when she had heard rumors in the town square of a possible small
tornado coming to town. Sure enough, she could see one in the pasture coming
her way.
After ten minutes and the tornado had passed, the mother went to look
for her baby. There was no crying sounds coming from anywhere and she began to
get worried. Finally, after looking everywhere, the mother spotted her baby in
a nearby tree. The baby was calm until the wind started rustling again. The
doctor was right. The mother had to reassure her baby she would be in her arms
again after the wind came back to push her cradle back down. Sure enough, the
cradle fell with the baby safely into the mother’s arms just like she had told
the baby. From then on, the child was calmed by her mother’s voice and not the
sound of wind that reminded her of her journey into the air onto the top of a
tree.
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Author's Note: I created this story based on the nursery rhyme, Hush-a-bye Baby available in The Nursery Rhyme Book edited by Andrew Lang and released in 2008. I surrounded my story on the premise of how the baby got into the tree in the first place. Of course, this is highly unlikely to occur in real life, which is why I felt it appropriate as a story ;) The only way a baby could end up in a tree in a cradle would be to have been put there but I thought about how things end up in trees around here. Since tornados are more likely in Oklahoma I based the story here. I then had to figure out why on earth a baby would not be undercover in the case of a tornado, hence the colic-y state of the child and the desperation of the mother. With doctor's orders, I figured it would be most believable. I hope I get better at this storytelling business because this was pretty difficult to do ! But fun as well :)
Oh wow, Brittany, this is so cool!!! That nursery rhyme option is new this year (I found the nursery rhyme book when I was working on reading materials for the Myth-Folklore class), and I thought it could be really good for storytelling... but you are exactly right: it is HARD. The rhymes gives you characters (sort of) and setting (sort of)... but you pretty much have to figure out the plot all on your own! I thought you did an ingenious job with that: weird and surreal but also so connected with Oklahoma at the same time! And such a good image too! I enjoyed reading in the note how you pieced it together step by step. For the Indian Epics, you will have the plots ready-to-go when you do the story retelling... so it will not be as hard as this, but of course you can always twist the plots in ingenious ways even when there is a plot to start with. I hope you will have fun with the stories every week; for me, it is so much fun getting to see new versions of the old stories!
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your introduction, I can definitely see how your writing of this story may have been influenced! Of course the tornado in your story was the kind of tornado we all wish Oklahoma had, rather than the one's we get! I really like the new nursery rhyme option because you can bring life to a little rhyme with little content, which you definitely did! Most of us have heard that rhyme before, but you brought a whole new story to it. I thought your story was very creative and I really enjoyed it! The nice thing about this class is that your stories don't have to be based in reality, so you can be as a creative as you want (like a baby safely landing in a tree from a tornado!) Great Job! I look forward to reading more of your stories!
ReplyDeleteHi Brittany,
ReplyDeleteThe first thing I noticed in your story was that the main character in the story was in a similar situation to you. I think the story would be even cooler if it was fleshed out as old Native American Folklore, including wind spirits or something similar.
I need to take more of a creative leap with my stories, not necessarily relying on the rhyme to give me all of my background information. I thought the gaps that you filled in the plot were great.
This nursery rhyme was one I often heard in childhood, so right off the bat I was very intrigued about how you were planning to expand from a few lines to an entire story. And--to tell you the truth--this was not what I was expecting!
ReplyDeleteBeing a Pennsylvanian and not an Oklahoman, tornadoes are a somewhat new experience in my life. As such, I find this story to be an example of a microculture's version of an archetype. To an Oklahoman, perhaps it is only logical that a tornado is involved if a baby is to end up in a tree--even if the situation is quite fantastic; whereas to me, the idea seems perhaps even more unrealistic simply due to the fact that tornadoes play a more marginal role in my life.
Overall, though, I loved the creative take on the rhyme and the way you explained not only how but also why a baby may end up in a tree. Excellent work!