Reading Notes: Eastern Stories and Legends, Part A

Image info: A pic of a Hare, Image credit: dailybunny

In the story “The Hare That Ran Away” by Marie L. Shedlock, the author writes about a little nervous hare who is always afraid that something tragic was going to happen to her. One day, as she was wondering what would happen if the Earth had fallen on her, she heard a slight noise that frightened her so much to the extent that she really thought that the Earth had begun to fall. Without thinking about other possibilities, the hare took off, running as fast as she could go, and she accidentally runs into her older brother, in which she claims that she had witnessed the Earth falling and everyone should be running for their lives. From one animal to another, the word quickly traveled far and soon enough, everyone had heard about the little nervous hare’s story and all the animals were all shouting in chaos. The wise lion, hearing all the noise, silenced everyone in order to hear what the problem was all about. As each animal explained who they heard the source from, the lion was able to track down the original source to the little nervous hare. Then, he brought the little nervous hare to where the noise had frightened her. There, they found the fruit that caused the entire misunderstanding. The earth was indeed not falling.
I think that the most important event in the plot is probably when the fruit fell and scared the hare. With that being said, something dissatisfying about the plot that I would like to change is most likely the ending. Instead of the earth not being in trouble, I want to change it to where the hare saves the earth, and all the animals that live on earth. I thought that the hare needed a little push to see how confident she really was to not be afraid of anything.

Bibliography: "The Hare That Ran Away" by Marie L. Shedlock. Website: Gateway to the Classics