The Legend of Narcissus

(A story to retell)

Narcissus was a youth who knelt daily beside a lake to contemplate his own beauty. He was so fascinated by himself that, one morning, he fell into the lake and drowned. At the spot where he fell, a flower was born, which was called narcissus.
      When Narcissus died, the goddesses of the forest appeared and found that the lake, which had been fresh water, transformed into a lake of salty tears.
            “Why do you weep?” the goddesses asked.
            “I weep for Narcissus,” the lake replied.
            “Ah, it is no surprise that you weep for Narcissus,” they said, “for though we always pursued him in the forest, you alone could contemplate his beauty close at hand.”
            “But… was Narcissus beautiful?” the lake asked.
            “Who better than you to know that?” the goddesses said in wonder. “After all, it was by your banks that he knelt each day to contemplate himself!”
      The lake was silent for some time. Finally, it said:
            “I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depth of his eyes, my own beauty reflected.” (Paulo Coelho)

Ending a Myth with a Bang

      When I was little, my two cousins and I usually spent the holidays with each other's families in turn. The three of us slept in one big bed. We kept each other awake most of the night, talking about the mysteries and wonders of Christmas morning. Our stockings were always huge and in the morning when we woke, the first thing we did was check what was inside. 
      One Christmas Eve I woke at the critical moment, and saw, not Santa Claus, but three familiar figures hissing from the doorway 'Hurry up - don't wake them!' I lay as still as death. Next morning I shattered the already somewhat shaky illusions of my two cousins. We told no one what we knew, and kept our secret for a year. 
      The following Christmas Eve we laid a Santatrap. This consisted of a collection of kitchen utensils - saucepans laid in strategic positions on the floor, a baking tin filled with forks and spoons balanced on the top of the floor, kettles hung from the ceiling. We kept awake until at last we heard the sound of footsteps from the stairs, accompanied by 'shushes' from the aunts. The trap worked beautifully. The uncles and my father, merry and unsuspecting, after an evening's celebration, were approaching with their sacks of presents. As they pushed the door open, the tins and cutlery crashed round their ears. Pushed forward by the screaming aunts, they fell over the pots and pans and bumped into the hanging kettles. The lights went on. We leapt up and jumped on them, screaming in triumph, ending the happy myth with a bang.

(based on The L-shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks)

The Little Girl and the Wolf

(A story to retell)

One afternoon a big wolf waited in a dark forest for a little girl to come along carrying a basket of food to her grandmother. Finally a little girl did come along and she was carrying a basket of food. "Are you carrying that basket to your grandmother?" asked the wolf. The little girl said yes, she was. So the wolf asked her where her grandmother lived and the little girl told him and he disappeared into the wood.
When the little girl opened the door of her grandmother's house she saw that there was somebody in bed with a nightcap and nightgown on. She had approached no nearer than twenty-five feet from the bed when she saw that it was not her grandmother but the wolf, for even in a nightcap a wolf does not look any more like your grandmother than the Metro-Goldwyn lion looks like George Washington. So the little girl took an automatic out of her basket and shot the wolf dead.
(Moral: It is not so easy to fool little girls nowadays as it used to be.) 

After James Thurber