Week 12 Storytelling: The Rose Tree's Tale

There once was a beautiful rose tree that grew in a garden. The tree was planted by a brother and sister years ago on a sunny spring day. It started off small but as time passed it grew into a huge tree with pretty white roses. When the tree blossomed the fragrance from the roses could be smelled all the way into the house so, the family would keep their windows open and allow the sweet smell to fill every room. Not only did the tree give off a comforting scent but it also provided the children with shade when they played outside after school. The little girl liked to climb up high on the tree’s branches. She would sit there and read books for hours and hours until her mother came outside calling her in for dinner. The little boy on the other hand was a flirt and liked to pick the flowers from the rose tree and give them to the girls in his class. The tree didn’t mind she just enjoyed the company the children gave her. As the years passed the tree saw many things… some good and some very bad. She never told anyone about the things she saw until one day when an unspeakable thing occurred. She decided to tell a little white bird that enjoyed sitting on her branches what happened that dreaded day.

(White Blossoms. Source: Free Stock Photos)

One day I watched as the little girl returned home from school. She skipped happily into the house and was greeted by her stepmom. I wasn’t a fan of her stepmom… she was always used to being the prettiest woman in town and now that her daughter had grown up everyone was talking about how pretty the little girl had started to become. I could tell she was getting jealous because each day I would watch her take extra time to get ready in the morning. She started putting on more makeup and curling her hair.

When the little girl walked in the mom greeted her and complimented her on how beautiful her hair was. She asked the little girl to lay her head on her lap so she could comb her hair out since it had been up all day during school. As she did this she slowly reached over and grabbed an axe that was sitting right behind her. I wanted to scream out and warn the child about what was going on... but I’m just a tree! So, I watched as she held up the axe and chopped off the girls’ head.

The brother came home much later from tutoring and immediately knew something was wrong. Normally his sister would be sitting up in my branches reading one of her books… but she was nowhere to be found. When he walked inside and saw the horrifying scene inside he grabbed his sister’s body, put her in a box and buried her underneath me. He sat there for hours weeping over the loss of his sister. He eventually cried himself to sleep so as I always do I provided him with shade and watched over him for the night.

Now the boy comes every day to be with his sister. He spends time talking to her and keeping her up to date on what’s going on in his life. I’ve watched him grow up into a man with a wife and kids. He seems very busy now, but he still makes time to visit his sister and I everyday and for that I’m grateful for his company. I will continue to watch over his sister and keep her safe for the rest of my life!

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Author's Note: I chose to do this weeks storytelling based off of the story called The Rose Tree by Joseph Jacobs. In this story a step mom is jealous of her daughters beauty. She asks the daughter to lay her head on her lab so she can comb out her head. She then complains that the girls hair is so tangly and asks her to grab a board to help. When the girl brings the board and lays her head back down the mom grabs an axe and chops off her daughters head! When the brother finds out he grabs the body and buries it under a rose tree in their garden and cries until his tears reach the box where she is buried. The story ends with a white bird that normally sits in the rose tree's branches, tricking the step mom to come out side. The bird drops a millstone on her head as payback and kills her right there on the spot! I decided to use the rose tree in my story as the narrator. I wrote the story as if she was the one who saw everything and was telling the white bird about it. I left out the whole ending part of the birds revenge because it would have made my story way too long and I really wanted to focus on the rose tree. 

Bibliography: "The Rose Tree" by Joseph Jacobs. Source: UnTextbook.