This story is about an elephant that was born white and wise. As he grew up he realized how cruel and selfish his peers where so he decided to leave the elephant civilization in favor for a life on his own. After the white elephant left the civilization he began offering his advice to other animals who were in tough situations. Once the white elephant had been doing this for a while he became known as "Good King Elephant." One day a man came walking through the woods who was distraught because he had been lost for a few days and could not find his way to his destination. The white elephant saw the man and went to help him but the man thought the white elephant would hurt him so he ran away. After a while the man realized that the wise white elephant was not there to hurt him so he stopped to talk. The elephant heard the mans predicament and offered to let the man stay with him a few days then help the man get going the right way. The man agreed to this and a few days later he was on his way to Varanas where he would meet an ivory bazaar. It was here the man learned the monetary value of ivory and thought of a plan to get ivory from the white elephant. He went back and told the white elephant the he needed his tusks in order to pay off his debts but he had intentions of selling them for selfish profit. He sold the tusks and realized he wanted more money so he went back to the white elephant. He told the white elephant that he needed more tusk in order to have money to live. The white elephant allowed the man to take the remainder of the tusk knowing the tusk was the secret to his knowledge. The man took them but was then take up by the earth and fire which was condemning the man for being selfish. After this the white elephant was able to live peacefully for the rest of his days.
From Jataka tales of Nobility: Elephant Stories found in the reserves in the Bizzell Memorial Library on the campus of the University of Oklahoma.
By: Lakshmi Lal, Ashok Dongre, and Anant Pai
There are two different styles that I think would work well to retell this story. The first is to write this story as a skit type story with the conversation between the man and the elephant. My other option would be to do it as if the man wasn't killed and do like a wanted poster type story. I also am considering a scene and character change in the story to make it more modern.
My overall goal for this story is to minimize grammatical and spelling mistakes on my first attempt.
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