Moral stories have a big impact on young minds. They help kids in building ethics and values and give them a better feeling of what is right and wrong. The stories teach about different topics like greed, pride, anger and many more. The following moral story by James Baldwin is a great example of that!
James Baldwin was born in Hamilton County in Indiana on December 15th 1841. From the age of 24, he became an educator and worked for the school system in Indiana for 18 years. He was a well-known author of school books from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century. He also wrote about well-known people and their lives and rewrote classical books. During his lifetime he sold over 26 million copies all over the world and worked for different book companies. James Baldwin died in South Orange in New Jersey on September 1st 1925 at the age of 83.
One of his most known works “Abraham Lincoln, a True Life” is already 118 years old. The following moral story “The King and His Hawk” was released on the first of January in 1896.
The story is about a king, Genghis Khan, who regularly goes out on hunting trips with his hawk and his friends. The hawk is his loyal companion and supports him in catching prey. It is a hot summer day when they are riding through the desert. They caught a lot that day so everyone went back early, but Genghis Khan takes a different route. The king gets thirsty and starts to look for a spring to drink some fresh water. He finds water dripping down the rocks and holds his cup out to catch some of it. When he is just about to drink it the hawk flies down and hits the water out of his hands. He tries again to finally still his thirst but the hawk stops him before he could drink it again. Since the king is so thirsty, he gets angry, draws his sword and kills the hawk when it flies down again. It falls to the ground, bleeding and dying. During this action, his cup fell down between the rocks so the king decides to climb up the spring where he can reach the water without a problem. When he arrives at the top he sees a big, dead, poisonous snake lying in the water. Drinking it would have killed him. The king was filled with regret and cried, thus he acted out of anger and killed his one true companion that saved his life.
For the original story, click here! https://americanliterature.com/author/james-baldwin/short-story/the-king-and-his-hawk
In the original version from James Baldwin, you might find some words that are not commonly used anymore nowadays. Below, you can find the translation to those more difficult words!
“Gayly” (l.6): happily
“Wring” (l.39): to twist or to squeeze
I hope you learned something from this story! The moral “Never act out of anger” is an important lesson for many parts of life and I hope you think of this story the next time you feel angry.
