Folk Fable #1: The Spider

Afternoon story-lovers.

If you’re suffering from the mid-week blues, then you’re probably looking for something to lighten the mood.

Well, you’re in luck: as a means to demonstrate how story can captivate us in a way that the matter-of-factuals cannot, we’ve decided to fully embrace our story-telling mantra and put together some fables for you.

You might even find a moral swimming about somewhere...

The Spider

The more and more they wriggled and writhed, the more they seemed to be stuck. Her thick grey body and glistening ruby eyes stared down from the darkness. She wasn’t hungry yet, but She soon would be.

“It’s really just a matter of time”, they each thought, “before She slides gracefully onto this wiry web, and picks me for breakfast.”

But, the more and more they wriggled and writhed, the more they’d become stuck in the sticky web of The Spider.

Until one day a cunning fly caught the attention of someone close by.

“It’s no use wiggling - you’re just getting more stuck.”

“I’m not just going to sit here”, snapped the second fly, “I’ll be eaten for lunch.”

But fly number one was quite sure he was right, so spread word of his plan, and got friends to comply. Meanwhile, the second fly continued to wriggle and squirm.

And the more and more he wriggled and writhed, the more he’d become stuck in the worrisome net of The Spider.

It’s no use wiggling - you’re just getting more stuck. If we just work together, we’ll get out of this muck.

And as time passed on by, the plan seemed to catch: they’d wriggle in unison and get Her to detach. But all the long while, fly number two was a stickler:

I’m not going to sit and be eaten for dinner.

And the more and more he wriggled and writhed, the more he’d become stuck in the sticky web of The Spider.

Her big ruby eyes started to flare as thousands of flies began to prepare.

As She lowered herself with a fine silver thread,

fly number one gave a nod of his head -

and with the slightest vibration as Her claws touched the web,

the entourage shook and She filled up with dread.

The Spider’s sure-footing was failing, for sure,

as she fell with a crash through the web to the floor.

The hole that was made tore every fly free,

rejoicing and flying, assailing the tree.

But fly number two, who had not been so clever, kept wriggling, writhing and stickling forever.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY: A thousand flies can overcome a spider if they work together