Something different this week…a fable. I hope you enjoy it.

Old Bear’s Children

Once upon a time, there was a bear cub who lived in the deep woods. He loved his family, but he especially loved his den. So cozy and warm and good-smelling. He’d nestle down against his mama’s soft belly and take long naps, and he’d drift off to sleep while Mama stroked his fur. There’s a good cub, she’d croon, and then softly sing about Old Bear, one of their ancestors, who was a great and wise creature who watched over them all. In his younger days, Old Bear was quite the thing, snatching salmon from the stream, protecting the little ones from wolves, so powerful he could have his pick of mates. He chose Sonia, the most beautiful female in the land, but most of the others didn’t know she was so smart. She wanted him for her mate, and knew the competition would be stiff, but she also knew from watching the males of her family that she had to make his choice look like his idea. So she waited until the other females were engaged with taking care of the cubs and wandered off on her own. She spied him nearby and casually went about her way of collecting berries, until he drifted over. She held her tongue while he watched her, until he said, “Why do you paw so deep into the bushes when the outside ones are easier to pick?”

“Because those are the sweetest,” she said, and offered him one, and that was that.

They lived a long and happy life together, eating sweet berries and raising their cubs and collecting wisdom they would share with each new generation. They passed on the stories of how they met and how they lived and how they fought, when it was necessary.

The little bear cub wanted a life like that, when he was grown. He wanted a wise mate to share berries and salmon and stories with, to have his own cubs with, to grow old with. But he didn’t know that any of the females would choose him. He was born with a short front right paw. Most of the other cubs made fun of him, even the girl cubs, and that hurt the most. Mama often told him that it shouldn’t matter to the ones who loved him. That even though Old Bear was strong and protective, he wasn’t the most handsome of the bears and in fact one eye was smaller than the other which tended to make him squint.

“You’re not yet full-grown,” Mama would say, and suggested that the paw might yet catch up with the rest of him. It never did. “One day you’ll find a mate just for you,” she said. But that didn’t happen yet, either.

When he was finally grown, and he saw the others of his age group choose mates, he decided he had only one choice. Reluctantly he said goodbye to his mama and papa and sought out to start his adult life somewhere new. For a while he roamed, plucking sweet berries and catching salmon. He made his own den, tried to make it as good-smelling as the one he’d left, and it came close but it was never quite the same.

One day he was out hunting the best berries and heard a rustle in the bushes behind him.

He turned.

“You’re digging deep for berries,” she said. “You must have learned the ways of Old Bear.”

He froze, the berry in his mouth mashed against his tongue. Hiding his short paw the way he always did, not meeting her eye.

“Are you hurt?” she said, gesturing at his paw with her snout.

He shook his head. Something about her manner said “trust.”

So he did. She made a noise of comfort, so like his mama’s, deep in her throat.

“I’m missing three claws on my left paw from fighting off a wolf when I was small,” she said. The next noise sounded like a short laugh. “We can be a hunting team then, me with my better right and you with your left. It would make it easier to catch salmon.”

This sounded like a good idea to him. It was hard work catching salmon alone, and it might be nice to have a friend. Then he raised his snout to look her in the eye. And froze again.

“I know.” She sighed. “I tend to squint. Mama says it means I’m a descendent of Old Bear. Although with mama stories, it’s hard to know which are actually true and which are meant for comfort.”

His heart beat a little faster. “A true descendent of Old Bear surely would have the courage to fight off a wolf when just a cub.”

She fluttered her eyes at him, and something about the squint made that look kind of pretty. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

“I do not,” he huffed. “I—”

Then she laughed again, and extended her partially declawed paw, and they ran off to the stream.