Week 9 Story: Brutus and the Squirrels

Once upon a time there was a man named Brutus. Brutus was a giant, vulgar man who no one liked. He had a brother named Sam who was a successful buisnessman with a big house and a beautiful wife and two equally beautiful children. Sam was very well liked and respected by everyone in the town, but he was incredibly mean to his brother Brutus. To be fair, Brutus was mean to everyone, but it still hurt how cold his own brother was to him. 

One day, Brutus decided he was completely fed up with his unfair treatment from his family. He bought a shack out in the middle of nowhere, and after unpacking he felt the need to explore his surroundings. Brutus grabbed his shotgun and headed out into the big wide open countryside. As he was exploring, he quickly grew tired and decided to take a nap. 

During his nap, he dreamt of a beautiful girl who actually wanted to spend time with him. She had him follow her deeper into the woods, to a secluded, empty, but pristine mansion. Once they arrived she said she wanted to marry him but first he had to catch and cook her some squirrels. He went to catch the squirrels, but when he got back to cook them for her he woke up. 

Squirrel from Slate

Once Brutus woke up, he was convinced that if he kept hiking he would find his dream woman. He immediately recognized the area of woods he was in as the same area from his dream! He followed the path deeper into the woods, and HOLY CRAP! The mansion was right there!! And walking outside to greet him was the same girl from his dream! He couldn't believe his luck, first just a dream about a girl actually liking him and now a real life girl liking him?? He ran up to her to make sure she was, in fact, a real life girl that was actually interested in him. She told him to go catch her some damn squirrels, and before he could turn to go, six little boys ran out of the house to greet their mama. She demanded that Brutus take one of her sons with her to help him carry the squirrels, but that he had to skin and gut them before he brought them back because they freaked her out when they still had their heads. 

Every day Brutus took one of her sons hunting for squirrels, and every day he skinned and gutted them so that he could make his new girlfriend happy. After a long enough time though, Brutus started feeling back to his old ways of being incredibly lazy. He was getting really tired of constantly having to skin and gut the damn squirrels. One day he decided he was done, and had one of her sons take the regular unskinned not gutted squirrels back home to her. Suddenly right before the little boy got home, Brutus was overcome with guilt. He ran after the little boy and quickly skinned and gutted the squirrels for his girlfriend. This exact scenario happened five more times, but the sixth time, Brutus waited just a little bit too long. The little boy had already made it back to the house before Brutus caught up to him. As he ran up to the spot where his mansion used to be, everything was gone. His house was gone, his girlfriend was gone, and his hunting companions were all gone too. 

Brutus was so incredibly disappointed, especially when he realized his brother Sam had just picked the perfect moment to come see his new house!! 

Author's Note: 

I wrote this story based off the Congo story The Vanishing Wife. The plotline is pretty much the same, but the brothers are named Buite and Swarmi and Buite had to behead fish that he caught every day for his girlfriend. I thought this story would be fun to rewrite just because it was an interesting story. Buite was hated by everyone but dreamt of a beautiful woman who wanted him to catch her fish. He woke up and went back to the spot he found her, and she was really there! He followed along with catching and beheading the fish, until he got lazy and stopped. As soon as he stopped everything disappeared and he was all alone. 

Bibliography:

Stories from the Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort Congo by R. E. Dennett