The Serpent Eagle

By: Mabel Cook Cole

Filipino folktale

Once there lived two boys whose mother sent them every day to the forest to get
wood for her fires. Each morning, as they started out, she gave them some food for
their trip, but it was always poor and there was little of it, and she would say:

“The wood that you brought yesterday was so poor that I cannot give you much to
eat today.”

The boys tried very hard to please her, but if they brought nice pine wood she
scolded them, and if they brought large dry reeds she said:

“These are no good for my fire, for they leave too much ashes in the house.”

Try as they would, they failed to satisfy her; and their bodies grew very thin from
working hard all day and from want of enough to eat.

One morning when they left for the mountains the mother gave them a bit of dog
meat to eat, and the boys were very sad. When they reached the forest one of them
said:

“You wait here while I climb the tree and cut off some branches.”

He went up the tree and soon called down, “Here is some wood,” and the bones of
his arm dropped to the ground.

“Oh,” cried his brother, “it is your arm!”

“Here is some more wood,” cried the other, and the bones of the other arm dropped
to the ground.

Then he called again, and the bones of his leg fell, then those of his other leg, and so
on till all the bones of his body lay on the ground.

“Take these home,” he said, “and tell the woman that here is her wood; she only
wanted my bones.”

The younger boy was very sad, for he was alone, and there was no one to go down
the mountain with him. He gathered up the bundle of wood, wondering meanwhile
what he should do, but just as he finished a serpent eagle called down from the tree
tops:

“I will go with you, Brother.”

 So the boy put the bundle of wood on his shoulder, and as he was going down the
mountain, his brother, who was now a serpent eagle, flew over his head. When he
reached the house, he put down the bundle and said to his mother:

“Here is your wood.”

When she looked at it she was very much frightened and ran out of the house.

Then the serpent eagle circled round and round above her head and called:

“Quiukok! quiukok! quiukok! I do not need your food anymore.”

Mabel Cook Cole (April 18, 1880 – November 13, 1977) was a dancer and singer. She
specialized in the study of ancient man and in studying the people of the Philippines.
Her books include The Story of Primitive Man, The Story of Man, Savage Gentleman,
and Philippine Folk Tales.

Mabel Elizabeth Cook Cole

Born: April 18, 1880

Plano, Kendall, Illinois

Died: November 13, 1977 (aged 97)

Pomona, Los Angeles, California

Resting place: Little Rock Township Cemetery, Plano, Illinois

Occupation: Author and anthropologist

Nationality: American, English

Education: Plano High School

Alma mater: Northwestern University, graduated in 1903.

Period 20th century

Genre: Children's literature; also Philippine anthropology topics

Notable works: A charter member of the Women Anthropologists Group with

Margaret Mead and a number of others

Spouse: Fay-Cooper Cole, also an anthropologist, who taught at the

University of Chicago, and designed the Philippines displays
at Chicago's Field Museum

Children: 1 child: Lamont Cook Cole, also a well-known researcher

 The Lion & the Mouse
By: Jerry Pinkney
Fables

A Lion lay asleep in the forest, his great head resting on his

paws. A timid little Mouse came upon him unexpectedly, and in her

fright and haste to get away, ran across the Lion's nose. Roused

from his nap, the Lion laid his huge paw angrily on the tiny creature

to kill her.

"Spare me!" begged the poor Mouse. "Please let me go and

some day I will surely repay you."

The Lion was much amused to think that a Mouse could ever

help him. But he was generous and finally let the Mouse go.

Some days later, while stalking his prey in the forest, the Lion

was caught in the toils of a hunter's net. Unable to free himself, he

filled the forest with his angry roaring. The Mouse knew the voice

and quickly found the Lion struggling in the net. Running to one of

the great ropes that bound him, she gnawed it until it parted, and

soon the Lion was free.

"You laughed when I said I would repay you," said the Mouse.

"Now you see that even a Mouse can help a Lion."

Illustrator Jerry Pinkney was born on December 22,
1939 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Willie Mae and
James H. Pinkney. Pinkney began drawing when he was
four years old and, though he was gifted with creating
art, he struggled with undiagnosed dyslexia throughout
his childhood, high school, and college years. In 1957,
he graduated from Murrell Dobbins Vocational School in
Philadelphia and received a full scholarship to attend
Philadelphia College of Art. After two and a half years,
Pinkney left college to marry and start a family with his
wife, Gloria Jean.

Pinkney worked briefly as a flower delivery truck driver in Philadelphia before relocating
to Boston, Massachusetts, where he joined the Rust Craft Greeting Card Company. In
Boston, Pinkney also joined the Boston Action Group, and developed friendships with
artists of color. In 1962, he began working for Barker-Black, a design and illustration
studio. Pinkney illustrated his first children’s book, The Adventures of Spider: West
African Folk Tales, by Joyce Cooper Arkhurst in 1964. In 1971, he opened Jerry Pinkney
Studio in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. Pinkney illustrated over 100 books, including:
Song of the Trees (1975) by Mildred D. Taylor, Mary McLeod Bethune (1977) by Eloise
Greenfield, The Covenant (1980) by James A. Michener, The Talking Eggs (1989) by
Robert D. San Souci, Back Home (1992) by Gloria Jean Pinkney, The Jungle Book
(1995) by Rudyard Kipling, and Tales of Uncle Remus (1987), Sam and the Tigers
(1996), Black Cowboy, Wild Horses (1998) and The Old African (2005) by Julius Lester.

Pinkney served in a number of educational capacities, including as associate professor

of illustration at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York from 1986 to 1988, as associate
professor of art at University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware from 1988 to 1992 and
as visiting professor at State University of New York-Buffalo in 1991. Between 2003 and
2009, Pinkney served on the National Council of the Arts. His work was featured in
multiple group and solo exhibitions throughout the United States as well as in Japan,
Italy, Russia, Taiwan and Jamaica. Pinkney also contributed to numerous Caldecott
Honor books, and was the first African American recipient of the Caldecott Medal for his
illustrative retelling of the Aesop’s fable The Lion & the Mouse in 2009.

Pinkney and his wife, Gloria Jean, have four children.

A Modern Fairy Tale: Rapunzel

There was a man and a woman living in New York City who were trying to have a
baby. After several months the wife was successfully pregnant. Now the young couple
lived in an apartment complex and on the roof of this building there was an old woman
who grew all sorts of delicious and pretty plants. Of course the wife would see the
plants hanging over the rooftop as she looked out her window. After several more
months of staring at the plants day after day, the wife began to look pale and wan and
had a look of deep yearning continuously written on her face.

One day when the wife was looking particularly pale and wan and the wife’s
face was looking particularly yearning the husband asked what the matter was. She
replied that the plants hanging over the rooftop looked so delicious and fresh that she
knew if she didn’t get any very soon she would just die.

Now the husband being insensible and very stupid took his wife deadly serious
and immediately began to worry. He knew in the little of the brain that he used that he
would have to hatch a plan to steal some of the herbs from the old lady’s garden.

That very night the husband opened the very window his wife sat at everyday
and hooked a rope over the rooftop. Now any sensible person would’ve just taken the
elevator and simply asked the old lady for some of her plants. But since the husband
was not a sensible person he continued to climb out the window and hoist himself up to
the roof.

This night was moonless which meant that it was pitch black and the husband
had forgotten to bring a flashlight, of course. So it became increasingly difficult to
maneuver around in the garden without bumping into empty gardening pots, watering
cans, bags of fresh fertilizer, and tripping over hoses. After 15 minutes of successfully
destroying half of the old ladies garden and not finding the plants that his wife had
wanted the old woman appeared with an old flashlight shining strongly. Now the old
lady was already angry that someone was intruding in her garden but in finding that
same garden half destroyed by this very intruder made her quite beyond furious.

The man quaking listened to the old ladies ranting until begging for mercy he
explained the strange circumstances that had brought him there. The old lady having
finally realized that she was dealing with a simpleton smiled wickedly and said she
would give him all the plants he wanted but in return he would give the baby to her
when it was born. Of course the old lady was joking. What would she do with a baby?
Absolutely nothing, children were a nuisance especially babies. But the husband didn’t
know this and believed whole-heartedly in what she was telling him to do. After this the
woman gave him instructions to come to her apartment door in the morning. There
would be plants a plenty waiting for him. Adding that climbing over the rooftop was
stupid and that he could just use the elevator. Then she left him to climb his way back
down to his window.

The husband was quite shocked at the deal the old lady had given but being a
simpleton he did not contact the authorities or any such thing but left the baby on the
old ladies doorstep when it was born.

When the old lady found the child she was quite bewildered having quite
forgotten the deal she had made with the husband but as she remembered she was
shocked. Almost immediately the old lady had taken the baby back to the young
couples apartment only to find to her dismay that they had left very abruptly.

So the old lady returned to her own apartment and raised the baby girl as her
own. Calling her Rapunzel after the very plant the wife had liked so much. The old lady
soon found that the little girl was just as stupid as her father, which caused her many
problems, as Rapunzel grew older. When the girl was sixteen years old she found an
old abandoned building on one of her walks in the neighborhood. Wanting to strike out
on her own Rapunzel packed up her things and moved in immediately. The apartment
she chose was at the very top and could only be reached by the fire escape, which
suited Rapunzel’s satisfaction very nicely. The old lady tried to dissuade her but to no
avail. So she went back to her garden leaving Rapunzel to do what she wished. The last
thing the old lady heard was that Rapunzel had been rescued from the condemned
building and had married the very fireman who had saved her. She was now living
happily with her husband and small children. The old lady after hearing this news
smiled, shook her head and went back to planting seedlings in her little garden pots.