September 13, 2009

A City Under Siege

Filed under: Story Collection — Tags: — Sheila @ 1:48 pm

Audio: A City Under Siege

Once upon a time, the citizens of a walled city were under attack. The enemy had closed in and surrounded the city, so the citizens could not escape and neither could food nor supplies get in.

The people were close to starvation. They were at their wits end – should they surrender or keep what little pride they had left to die of hunger?

The weary ruler decided it would be best just to wave the white flag and hope that the enemy would take some pity on them. Just as they were about to lower the drawbridge of the city, an old woman pushed through the crowd and urged them to stop. She knew how to save the city. All it required was a cow.

“A cow?” the people snorted, “All our cows have either been eaten or have died of hunger.”

“I’m sure there must be a cow hidden somewhere, people can become very secretive during hard times. Find me a cow, and the city will be saved!”

The doubtful citizens set about searching and eventually, in the basement of one of the houses, a soft ‘moo-ing’ could be heard. And sure enough, a cow was found hidden in the basement of a selfish family who had been keeping the cow’s milk for themselves.

The old woman, with the cow by her side, then asked for 2 buckets of grain.

“You are crazy old woman!” an angry man shouted, “We don’t have enough grain to fill two buckets.”

“If everyone contributes what they have, we will soon fill these two buckets”

The people were torn, this old woman was so sure of herself, yet they didn’t want to give up the last of their meager food supply. “This is a sacrifice that we will have to make, to save our city,” she said calmly as she emptied the last of her own grain into the first bucket.

Eventually each family added a handful or two of grain to the buckets and at last they were full. The old woman then took the buckets of grain over to the cow and tipped the grain onto the ground. The hungry cow promptly started crunching and munching away.

“We’re starving ourselves and you want to feed 2 buckets of grain to a cow?” By now the people were furious. They would have attacked the woman if the city’s ruler hadn’t stepped in to protect her.

“We have nothing to lose by following this old woman, if you remember correctly, this morning we were about to surrender. This could be our last hope of survival, let’s give it a chance.” He then commanded all the people to return to their homes for the night.

Once the cow had polished off all the grain, the woman asked the soldiers to open the gates, and she quickly pushed the cow out of the city. The cow was immediately spotted by an enemy sentry, swiftly captured and brought to the General.

The General was shocked when he saw the cow. I thought we had starved them out, and they have a spare cow?

But to his officers he laughed, “They think that one miserable cow will buy our mercy? Hah! …However, it will make a tasty dinner…” For you see, the enemy was rather short on food supplies themselves.

That evening they feasted on freshly roasted beef, but later that night, a trembling kitchen hand was brought before the General.

“Sir, when I was gutting the cow… I found undigested grain in its stomach!”

The General went pale, the city people had enough food to feed their cows whole grain? They weren’t starving in their walled city, they were just waiting the General and his army out before they attacked! He had obviously underestimated his opponent’s resilience and preparedness for war. They were no match to his tired forces.

Before dawn the next morning, the enemy soldiers had broken camp and retreated back to their own land. The cow, the grain and the old woman had saved the walled city.


1 Comment »

  1. Dear Sheila, We do not know one another. But, I am a friend of Margaret Read MacDonald. I am a storyteller and children’s author. Please know I LOVE your story City Under Siege. May I ask you about the source of the story? Is this one you found historically and adapted? Or is it a story you wrote on your own. I love history, and would really like to develop a version of the story to use with middle schools and high schools and to possibly add to my website. I have about 225 stories on my site that I freely allow readers to use in classrooms and at home with children. I give credit when I get stories from other tellers. I will not use this story without your consent if it is one you created. Thanks for considering getting back to me. Best of luck with your own storytelling. I hope we get to meet during some of my travels.

    Comment by Mike Lockett — March 2, 2017 @ 2:55 am

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