Reading Notes: Aesop (Winter), Part B



Mercury Greek God by Uva79. Web source: Wikimedia Commons. 




Here are some notes on my favorite story of Part B. Yesterday I tried to cover too many stories, so today I am just focusing on one that really stuck out to me and that I will want to retell.


Page 14- Mercury and the Woodman

 Story overview

- A Woodsman is working in the woods. The poor man has been working all day and his axe accidentally slipped out of his hand. The man is completely devastated because he needs his axe to work. Mercury (the god) appears and tries to retrieve the man's axe. First he brings gold axe, then a silver axe. The man tells Mercury that neither of those are his axe. He just had a regular axe. Mercury finds the man's real axe and returns it to him. To reward the man for his honesty, Mercury gives all of the axes to the man. When other people hear about this story, they try to scam Mercury into giving them a golden axe, but instead Mercury just hits them in the head.



 Retelling ideas:

- This story emphasizes the importance of telling the truth. I think that this will be a really fun story to retell because there are so many twists that can be added to create a new tale.

- I think that for my story, I want to focus on what would have happened if the man was dishonest to Mercury and claimed the golden axe. Maybe Mercury will have put a curse on the axe (or another object, I may change things up once I start writing), or maybe there will be some other punishment for taking what didn't belong to them. One thing I know is that I want the main character, my version of the woodsman, to not choose the path of honesty the first time they meet Mercury.

- Mercury is the god of trade and thieves. This is also something that I will keep in mind when crafting my story.

Bibliography

"Mercury and the Woodman" in The Aesop for Children. Author unknown. Illustrated by Milo Winter. Web source: UnTextbook. 

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