Week 11 Story: The Eagle's Dance

An eagle and his brother were soaring through the open, blue skies one day. They were hunting for food to feed their family that night. A few days had passed since they had gotten a sizable catch. When they were out flying, they saw some movement in the trees below them. A rapid movement struck down a deer a hundred feet below them. The eagle’s brother, controlled by his hunger, swooped down to feast on the deer. The eagle cried to his brother to be cautious, but he was too far away. The eagle looked down below at the scenes that followed in horror. He saw a hunter moving slowly in the brush and saw him draw back his bow. Before the eagle could even react, the eagle watched as his brother was pierced through the chest. The eagle squawked in fear and rushed back to his family to tell them the news.

He convinced one of his brothers to go with him to retrieve his slain brother’s body, but when they returned to the scene of the slaughter, both the deer and the eagle’s brother was gone. The eagle determined that the hunter must have taken his brother’s body back to his village. The eagle flew to the village alone and changed to his human form. From the village, he recognized sounds of singing and dancing he knew belonged to the people’s Eagle Dance. He slowly walked into their celebration, and the village people looked at him with curiosity as they did not know from where he had come.

The eagle in his human form began telling a story of how he had killed a man. The Eagle Dance was still proceeding in the background, but he had captured the attention of many in the audience. When the eagle finished telling his story, he gave out a yell that resembled his screech when in eagle form. At the exact moment he did so, the lead dancer fell dead. The eagle began another story of another man he killed, and the same proceedings as before happened three more times. Everyone in the village watched with trepidation with each story, and soon everyone was screaming in terror and fled from the eagle.

After four of the dancers had fallen dead, the eagle walked out of the village and disappeared into the shadows. He changed back to his eagle form and vanished into the night sky content with the revenge he had accomplished.

Author’s Note: In the original story of "The Eagle's Revenge," the story was told from the point of view from the hunter. The hunter found the eagle eating from the deer that he had killed. To keep his kill safe, the hunter shot the eagle. The hunter then took his deer home and told his village that he had also killed an eagle. The eagle was retrieved, and the village had an Eagle Dance. A mysterious stranger came from nowhere and started telling stories, and at the end of each story, someone in the dance died. The village people later found out that the stranger was the eagle's brother.

In my retelling of this story, I did not change too many details. I kept the majority of the story the same, but I told the tale from the perspective of the eagle's brother. In this way, we are able to see how the eagle's brother is able to find out that the hunter killed the eagle. In addition, we understand why he wants revenge.

Bibliography

The Eagle's Revenge, Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Katharine Berry Judson (1913)

Image Information: Eagle by Tony Hisgett, Wikipedia