After the evil son had been found out they decided to give him a proper punishment. For the crime of killing his own brother and claiming a reward that wasn't his the evil brother was tied to a large stone and thrown into the ocean to drown. The good brother was then taken out from under the bridge and given a proper burial in the king's graveyard.
The bone that was chiseled into a mouthpiece, however, stayed in the horn owned by the man who found it. After all of the wrongs were corrected the horn played usually and the bone sang no more. Life finally seemed to be balanced in the kingdom, until it wasn't.
When the king threw the evil brother in the lake he neglected to think about the power of his bones. If his brother's bone had the ability to sing, the other brother's bones must have the power to accomplish something. The king realized this after he had thrown him in the lake, and at that point, it was too late. The king shrugged off this realization in the hopes that he was overthinking the situation.
Many years had gone by and all that time the brother was at the bottom of the lake getting eaten by the surrounding fish. They would consume his flesh and little by little the fish would start to be influenced by his evil. The brother, in his afterlife influence, commanded the fish to clog the piped to the city with his bones. The fish did as told and suddenly all water supply to the kingdom stopped.
The man with the bone horn noticed that the entire kingdom had no water so he decided to play his horn to see if anything fishy was going on. When he played his horn the bone took control, the words rand out.
My brother in the sea,
once dear to me,
has commanded the fish,
to commit a terrible wish.
For his bones have clogged the pipes,
go now and make this right.
The man with the horn ran straight to the king and told him what had happened. The king then sent his special divers to go retrieve the bones. Once the bones were recovered the king burned them in his fire so that the evil brother may never cause trouble again.
Authors Note: This is a continuation of the singing bone story. I had never heard of that story when I first read it and I wanted more so I decided to create an epilogue where the evil brother had a little more influence on the issue.
Bibliography: This story is part of the Brothers Grimm unit. Story source: The Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales translated by D. L. Ashliman (1998-2013).
Hi Ryan! I was a little confused when the story started - it was just a little jarring to hear of a murder at the beginning of the story. I like the idea of bones holding some sort of magical power. I enjoyed the brother vs brother and good vs evil themes that ran throughout the story. Best of luck with the rest of the semester! We are almost there!
ReplyDeleteHey Ryan!
ReplyDeleteI like the layout of this post a lot! It really makes it easy to read and follow! I also thought the poem you included was really cute and well written. I also really enjoyed how the bones were the subject surrounding the magical powers. Also I think if you added a little bit more of information in your author's note, your story would be better understood!
-Sam
Hey Ryan!
ReplyDeleteI also like the layout of your website, and this story specifically. I think it does a really good job of making the story easy to follow, and fun to read. I thought your story was great, and had a lot of interesting elements that I didn't see coming.