Week 12 Storytelling: A Man's Best Friend

German Shepherd

Source: Flickr

There once lived a man named Kenny O'Toole, but most people from his town referred to him as Ole Man Toole. He was a happy man, until he lost his whole family to a tragic accident. The only surviving member of his family after the passing of his beloved wife, Margaret, and their two children, Ben and Katie, was their loyal German Shepherd, Buddy. Immediately after the death of Ole Man Toole's family, he become sort of a recluse. That was, until something miraculous happened. No one's sure how such a thing could happen, but it did!

You see, Buddy became Ole Man Toole's best friend. Of course, they were already close before the passing of his family, but after that, Buddy never left his side. They did absolutely everything together. With no family to take care of, Toole lacked the desire to work, and so he and Buddy spent their days in the forest. They fished and hunted and camped and hiked and all that fun stuff. I guess you could say he did all those things to keep his mind of the death of his family. And with Buddy always by his side, he never needed anyone else.

As all things do, Buddy grew old, as did Ole Man Toole. It saddened Toole to know that one day soon his faithful pup would pass just like his family and leave him all alone, until the day everything changed. Ole Man Toole was trotting through the forest with Buddy, trotting slowly of course because Buddy wasn't able to move as quickly as he could before.

"Oh hi there! May I do you a favor?" said the strange man Toole had never seen in the woods before.

"Umm, sure."

"Excellent. I would love to restore you dog here to his youthful self!"

"You can do that? Oh yes, please do. I'll give you anything you want!"

"Anything, huh? How about everything you own?"

"Done!"

"Are you sure? You're not going to go back on your word?"

"Promise. Cross my heart and hope to die." Toole didn't have to think twice about this decision. Buddy was the only thing he had left in this world. He could care less about possessions.

With the wave of his hand, the strange man brought Buddy back to his energetic and playful self again.

"Oh thank you so much! Here are the keys to my house. I could never thank you enough."

"No need sir. I was merely testing you. Thank you for staying true to your word. You will be blessed." And with that, the strange man disappeared, and Buddy lived until the death of his beloved owner, Ole Man Toole.

Author's Note: The story I used for this retelling is called King O'Toole and His Goose. In the original story King O'Toole has a pet goose. The king and his goose grow old which saddens the king. He runs into an unknown man, who turns out to be St. Kavin, the greatest of saints, who offers to make the goose young again. The king promises everything he owns to have his goose restored back to its youth. After the restoration of his goose, he offers his possessions to St. Kavin who denies them and tells the king he was only testing him. He blesses the king and his goose for his truthfulness to his word. I decided to make my story about an old man who lost his family. I changed the goose into a dog because that seemed more fitting as a pet.

Bibliography:
Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs (1892). Source: Myth Folklore Un-Textbook