Week 7 Story: The Master

The Master 

There once was a horse who was king of the farm, many of the farm animals called him, King Stallion. King Stallion was afraid of death, thus he told his companions he planned to leave them to find the way to eternal life.

Thus, King Stallion left his farm on a journey to find eternal life. He travelled the earth far and wide, traversing from one farm to the next. He met many wise animals - but none knew the ways to immortality. However, many pointed him to one farm where a certain pig rested - they only called him The Master.

After several years, King Stallion finally reached The Master's farm. Once there he realized he was not the only one with this goal of eternal life. There were hundreds and hundreds of different farm animals seeking wisdom from The Master. They all just sat there and listened to what he had to say - no one muttered a single word.

King Stallion spoke up, "Master, how does one gain eternal life?"

The Master responded, "This is only accomplished through learning the great truth. There are 360 ways to learn the great truth. How would you like to learn?"

"What are my options?"

"Shall I teach you the ways of magic?"

"Can one gain eternal life by means of magic?"

"No," responded The Master.

"Then I shall not learn it."

"Shall I teach you the ways of the sciences?"

"Can one gain eternal life by means of the sciences?" inquired King Stallion.

"No."

"Then I shall not learn it."

"Shall I teach you the ways of good deeds?"

"Can one gain eternal life by means of good deeds?"

"No," The Master repeated.

"Then I shall not learn it." said King Stallion.

With that The Master oinked three times and went back to his sty.

King Stallion was an observant man and knew that this meant he was to go to The Master's sty during the third feeding of the day. Thus, when the third feeding occurred he went to the pig's sty and The Master revealed to him the way to eternal life (after some tumultuous discussion). However, this would not be the end of King Stallion's journey, but this is the end of this story today.

*Author's Note: This story is based off of "The Monkey King Unit" - primarily the story entitle "The Master." Although, I did take tidbits of a few other stories as The Monkey King story all kind of runs together. Obviously, instead of a monkey I used a horse as my king, and instead of the jungle I used a farm. I thought this would be a fun way to mix things up. When it came to the interactions with The Master I kept it on the same lines with much less detail. I wanted to make sure I emphasized the repetitiveness of the conversation, more so, than the actual contents of each different "way." 

Bibliography. "The Master" from "The Ape Sun Wu Kung" in The Chinese Fairytale Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921). Web Source. 

(Stallion: Image by Aislinn Brander from Pixabay)