Folk Tales 15; The boy who howl

The boy who howl like wolf...

Somewhere in the high mountain ranges, there lived some families who tends to sheeps for a living. And their biggest fear was the loss of any sheep. So everytime a flock of sheep goes out, they assigned the male family members to guard it.

And so our story now began.

There was this young boy whose second nature was sleep and first nature was sleep longer. Due to his natural tendency to sleep, his father never send him to guard the sheeps because he may sleep on the job. But one day a distant cousin of his father was getting married and an invitation was received for his presence there, so he reluctantly told his son to take over.

So our young lad was assigned to guard the sheeps.

He led the sheeps to the pasture grounds to have their fill, and he took his rightful place under the apple tree.As he was afraid he will fall asleep, he tied a string to the nearest apple and held the string like a noose around his neck. He reckons if he sleeps, his head will dropped and the noose will tighten and so pulled the apple down to knock him awake. And it did when he was nodding off, and soon he find the apples on the trees are diminishing fast. But he also saw a wolf coming towards the sheep. He hollered like a mad man to chase the wolf. It also brought the other shepherds over to assist him, but they found no wolf. So he was let off with a warning.

This time he sat on the upper branches to see for any more apples, and if he does nod off, he will fall down so he will wake up. But before he can nod off, he saw the wolf again. So he jumped off the tree and hollered again like a mad man. The shepherds came again and there was no wolf to be found. So they gave him a lashing for false alarm.

So the young lad thought hard at how does to keep the wolf long enough for th shepherds to catch it. So he looked at the sheep and said; ‘I will asked them.’

So he did. And they told him what to do.

So he waited for the wolf to appear. And it did on the next hour.

So the young lad stood up and howl like a wolf, and this attracted the wolf which thinks he is not alone. So he came forth to see his wolf brother. He was confused at the sight of this young man who howls like him, and acts like a man. But the time the wolf took to understand the situation was the time required for the shepherds to trap and kill it. So the shepherds was glad of the young man who led the wolf into the trap.

But there was a bigger issue. The young lad’s howling brought in more wolves and the shepherds lost more sheeps than normal. So when the father comes back, he was confronted by some irrate shepherds for compensation.

As for the young lad, he was glad to sleep again under the apple tree with no care of any sheeps.

( Sometimes people can rise up to an issue but sometimes its better not to let them be for they may just create more issues if they try. )