Week 11 Story: The Rabbit that was Hunted

 

Updated version of this story is posted to my portfolio. Link here,

The Rabbit in this story looking out upon the pond with the Otter, knowing that he has never caught a Duck before.

Image from Watership Down.

There once was a very proud Rabbit who was always up for a challenge. He never backed down and he claimed he could do anything that the other animals could do. One day, as the Rabbit was passing by a large river, he noticed a large congregation of animals talking excitedly about a duck hunt. Since he was a curious creature, the Rabbit walked up to the congregation and asked what this duck hunt was all about. 

"Well", said the Otter, "I am going to show all of these fools that duck hunting is a real sport. I do it all of the time so I figured since I am the best at it, I could show the others how it's done."

"Well you can show them how to do it but I'll show them how a real professional catches ducks once you're finished. It's not as hard as you make it seem!" proclaimed the Rabbit proudly. One thing that the Rabbit did not mention, however, was that he had never gone duck hunting a day in his life. 

The Otter was angry that the Rabbit had made a fool out of him in front of the rest of the animals, so he told the Rabbit to stand back and watch how a real hunter goes about catching a duck. The Rabbit waited patiently on the river bank with the rest of the animals while the Otter elegantly dove into the water. He did not once come up for air as he quickly made his way to the small group of ducks in the middle of the pond. Out of nowhere, one of the ducks was pulled under the water! All of the animals watching gasped excitedly and cheered as the Otter came back to the river bank holding a duck in his hand. The Otter stood there proudly presenting the duck that was struggling to get away. 

"Yeah, yeah", said the Rabbit. "That's too easy. Watch this", he proclaimed, as he ran to the river and cannon-balled his way into the water. The Rabbit, naturally a creature who stays on the land most of the time, tried hard to hold his breath all the way to the group of ducks in the center of the pond. When he couldn't hold his breath anymore, he came up for air and discovered he was only one fourth of the way to the group of ducks. He heard the animals on the river bank laughing and joking, so he pushed on to prove to them that he could do this task. He came up for air twice more on his way to catch a duck, then he took a deep breath and dove back under the water. He kicked hard and came leaping out of the river and onto the back of a duck. The duck struggled and flapped its wings wildly to get away, hitting the Rabbit on accident. The Rabbit flew backwards and the duck continued to flap its wings as it flew away along with the rest of the ducks that had previously been sitting in the pond. The Rabbit slowly swam back to shore while listening to the animals hooting and hollering as they made fun of his attempt at duck hunting. He dragged his wet body out of the water and sat on the river bank, ashamed. The Otter tried to calm down the crowd, yelling at them to be quiet and he made his way over to the Rabbit. 

"I was hard on you about hunting because you lied and said you had done this a million times. If you had just told the truth I never would have challenged you to go duck hunting. Maybe if you come back here and practice with me, we can both be professionals with time."

The Rabbit looked up at the Otter with tears in his eyes and said he would enjoy that very much.

After this exchange, the animals dispersed fairly quickly and all went their separate ways. The Rabbit and the Otter stuck together  for months afterward, teaching each other skills they had never learned before. With time, they became good friends and eventually, they both became the town's professional go-to duck hunters!

Author's Note: In the original story, the Rabbit made a noose out of wood and hooked one of the ducks which ended up flying away with the Rabbit still holding on. He eventually fell off of the noose and into a tree trunk where he coerced a human to carve a door into the tree to let him out. I did not really like this ending to the story because it seemed to not make much sense in the long run. I thought the main focus of the story was the duck hunting itself, so I changed the ending to where it was happy for everyone. I also changed how the Rabbit did not catch a duck in my version of the story. It taught him to be humble and truthful, both of which I think are good lessons in children's stories!

Bibliography: Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney (1900).