Once Upon a Time
Once upon a time…..that’s how all good stories start, right? Once upon a time, a little boy asked his mom a question. The little boy had been thinking and thinking about his question for a long time. He wasn’t quite sure exactly what to say when he asked it, so one day, he just said what he was thinking.
“Mom,” he said, “what was the first story ever told?”
“Wow! That’s quite a question!” his mom replied. “Let me think about that.”
So the boy’s mom thought and thought. She remembered the stories she told the boy when he was a baby. She tried to remember the stories her own mom and dad had told her when she was very young. She even tried to think what kind of story somebody might tell if they had never heard a story before. She got tired thinking! She didn’t stop thinking, she just got tired from thinking so much. “I’ll have to tall you later,” she told the boy. “I can’t think of anything right now!”
Then the little boy went to his dad was just sitting and reading the newspaper.
“What are you doing, Dad?” he asked.
“I’m just reading the newspaper,” Dad answered. “I’m trying to catch up on today’s news. Lot’s of stories here about what’s happening all over the place.”
Hmmmm, the boy thought to himself. Lots of stories. I wonder if my dad can answer my question.
“Stories, huh?” he said. “Dad, what do you think was the very first story anybody ever told?”
“The very first story?” Dad asked. “Wow! I’ll have to think about that. I bet it wasn’t in any newspaper, though.” And he turned back to reading.
The little guy was kind of disappointed. He was hoping that somebody could answer his question. That’s when his older brother came in from playing outside. Big Brother took a look at Little Brother and saw that something was bothering him. “What’s up with you?” he said.
So Little Brother explained. He told his older brother what he was thinking about and what he had asked both their parents. He told his brother that Mom got tired just thinking about the question, and Dad just wanted to read the paper. Then he said, “The problem is… I’m still wondering!”
And that was that…until the next day.
The next morning at breakfast, Mom told the little boy that she had been thinking about his question all night long. She said that she even had a dream about it – and maybe now she could answer his question.
“Eat first,” she said. “Then I’ll tell you.” So he did.
After breakfast, Mom and the boy stayed at the kitchen table. That’s when Mom began to tell him what she thought might just be the very first story anybody ever told.
“Ok, here goes,” Mom began. Then she told the story.
Mom started to tell the very first story saying that it was a long, long time ago. She added, “Probably even longer than that.”
She said, “All the people lived in caves or under big rocks. Nobody had cars or houses or TV or anything. There were a lot of huge, nasty wild animals wandering around. Way back then, what dads did was – they hunted and killed those wild animals and brought them back to the cave for the family to eat. Moms took the fur off the animals and cleaned off all the dirt and dried them so that the family could wrap up in when it got cold.
Outside, great big trees grew up all around the cave where several families all lived together. Some people actually lived in the trees, too. The trees were beautiful, and people gathered up their leaves and made soft places on the hard cave floor where they would sleep.
Off in the distance, volcanos were erupting. Closer to the cave, storm winds often blew, rain poured down, and volcano smoke filled the air. All in all, it was busy and noisy, especially at night.
On one of the very first nights when people lived in their cave, it became especially noisy. The families was curled up on their piles of leaves trying to go to sleep. But all they could hear outside were the sounds of animals hunting, birds screeching, wind howling and volcanos rumbling. The only night light they had came from a little bit of embers still glowing in their firepit, and a tiny sliver of moon creeping in through the mouth of the cave. The baby of one family got scared! To sooth her baby, the mom picked up the child, and held it close. That’s when she told the very first story. It was the story about the moon.
The cave momma told her baby that the moon is a special spirit in the sky, and it would protect them. She said that the moon is really a magical bird that flies slowly across the sky. The bird, she said, lights a little tiny fire on its back in a far corner of the sky. Every night, as the bird flies, the fire grows a little bigger and the light gets brighter until the night when it becomes a bright yellow ball which lights up the night.
After a while, though, the bird gets tired and the fire dies down. The light goes out. Then the bird has to start all over again. And when the cave mom was done telling the story, her baby was asleep. So,” the little boy’s mom said, “the very first story was a story about the moon, and it helped put a baby to sleep.” The little boy smiled. He liked the story himself, but he wasn’t sure that that was really the very first story.
Later that day, the boy’s dad came home to eat lunch. Just like Mom, Dad told the little boy that he had been thinking about his son’s question all morning long. He said, “I think I know what that first story was. Let’s eat lunch first. Then I’ll tell you.” So they did.
After lunch, Dad started to tell his son the very first story. He started by saying that it was a long, long time ago. “Even longer than that, I bet,” he added.
“You know,” he started, “things were really, really different way back then. I mean really different. There were no cars, no newspapers, and no TV. There were no stores, so people had to hunt and find plants to eat, or they would starve. Usually the moms would go look for berries or roots they could eat raw or maybe cook, but the dads had to hunt! They hunted giant mastodons they were like 5 times bigger than elephants. And they hunted vicious sabre tooth tigers that could eat 5 men at one time! And they tried to snare great big birds that were very hard to catch, and almost as dangerous as the mastodons and tigers. Hunting was all really hard and dangerous.
It took them a long time to hunt one good animal to bring home to eat.
But after they got their big animal, cleaned it and cut it up, and after they started a fire to cook it, they all ate together. They had a sort of olden-times party.
So one night, back in the cave, one of the hunters had an idea. While the meat was cooking on the fire, the hunter found a sharp rock and started to scratch a picture of the animal on the wall of the cave. He drew it big, like the animal. He took some blood from the animal, some juice from a piece of fruit, and some burned wood from the fire, and he painted on the picture he had carved. It looked pretty cool. But one of the cave women asked, “What is that?” The men were surprised, so one of them decided to tell the women what the picture was all about. That’s when the oldest man in the world – at least that’s what the people called him – stood up and told the first story.
The old man told the women and everybody else about the picture on the wall on the cave.
He told them all about the big, wild beast. He told them about the men who were hunting it, and how they had to sneak up on it very quietly. He told them all about the fight to kill it, and how one brave man finally stuck it deep with his spear. The told them how that man almost got killed, too, but that he didn’t. Then all the other hunters cheered! He told about how the brave hunter pulled his spear out of the animal and raised it high over his head and cheered, too. The old man told them about how all the men worked hard together to bring the meat back to their families. Then the old man picked up his own old, cracked and broken spear and lifted it up high above his head. All the
people in the cave listened carefully for now they understood that the old storyteller had been the brave hunter. And that story of the hunt was the very first story ever told.”
Dad finished telling the first story.
Later when it was almost dinner time, the little boy’s older brother came in from playing outside. Big Brother told the Little Brother that he had been thinking about his brother’s question all day long. He said, “Let’s eat dinner first,” he said, “Then I’ll tell you.” So that’s what happened.
After dinner, the two brothers went into their bedroom. Big Brother started to tell the very first story. He started by saying that it was a long, long time ago. “Even longer than that,” he added.
“Even in the way back, way back days, kids liked to play. It was dangerous with all the big old monster animals and the crazy stuff that was going on, but still, kids wanted to have some fun, too. So they climbed up the tall trees, and they pretended to hunt; they chased small animals. They played in the river and they threw rocks at fish.
One day, they wanted to find out who the fastest kid from all the caves was, so they invented something they called ‘a race.’ They lined up and ran as fast as they could toward the entrance to a cave they had never seen before. Somebody dropped a stick as a signal, and they all started to run as fast as they could! One boy named Bartholomew (They called him Ogg for short) got to the cave first. He ran inside and … disappeared. When the rest of the kids got to the cave, they couldn’t see him anywhere, but they could hear him shouting.
Ogg had fallen into a hole in the floor of the cave and had landed in some water. The other kids started to try to get him out. They found some vines and climbed down to the water. They almost got to Ogg, but then he shouted again, “Something is biting me!” It was a big, hungry fish which lived in the water in the cave that nobody had been into before.
The other kids slapped away the fish, and they pulled Ogg out of the water. Then they helped him climb up the rope-vine and get out of the cave. When they all got up and out, they could see fish big bites on Ogg’s legs and scratches where he had fallen through the cave floor. He was hurt, but he was out of danger. It all took a long time, but everybody was safe.
When they got back to their home caves, Bartolomew told all the adults the story of the game, the race, of falling and the fish, and especially of how all his friends had rescued him. Everybody was very happy. And Ogg had told the very first story!”
The little boy smiled. He liked that story, and he was glad that Ogg was safe, but he still wasn’t sure that that was the very first story.
That night, when everyone was asleep, the little boy thought about each of the very first stories that he had heard.
There was his mom’s story about the moon.
There was his dad’s story about the hunt.
And there was his brother’s story about the race and rescue.
Each one was really good, but the boy was still looking for that very first story.
So – think about it. Can you help the little boy?
What do you think?
Once upon a time, what was….
The Very First Story Ever Told?
The End
(The Beginning)
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