Storytelling Week 10: Retelling of BlueJay and His Companions

A Grouse 

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Bluejay, his master and companions were out one day seal hunting at one of their favorite hunting grounds, when they came across their fellow native, Grouse. After they had caught their fair share of fine seal and the resultant meat, Bluejay and his crew teased Grouse about not being good enough to eat the fat (the most succulent part of the seals) as opposed to the poorest, leanest parts. However, Grouse knew that Bluejay and his crew liked to sleep in their canoes while hunting out late. So, when they had all fallen asleep Grouse quietly pushes the all of the canoes far from the shoreline, and they drift beyond the horizon.

    The group wakes up the next day to find themselves on the coast far from their home. They see another village near the shore however. But as soon as they dare approach the encampment for help, the locals challenge the group to a show of strength, skill and willpower with members of their own tribe. The local tribe says it is merely a right of passage for their grown boys to prove their worth against members of another tribe. If the crew lose these tests, they will be killed. The crew, in quiet dismay, agrees nonetheless.
    The first trial is a climbing contest, for which the most steep cliff is selected nearby. Bluejay tells his crew that if they manage to climb to the top before the young men do, they can try to escape.Once they've all started their climb early in the morning, it takes nearly a quarter of a day for either group to reach the top. However, just as Bluejay's entire crew is about to make it to the top, one of them, Land Otter, slips on a piece of seal fat that he had kept away from Grouse as it slips out of his hip pouch. Land Otter falls into the water below, and Bluejay knows they have to come up with another plan.
    The next challenge is a seal catching contest, and Bluejay feels reasonably good about this: he and his party are the best seal hunters, and canoers, in their tribe. Bluejay tells his men that if they can canoe away from the young men, they'll be able to make it home. They all start out with their canoes on the shore with the rest of the young men, and when the elder of the tribe gives the signal they all push off to the hunting grounds. Now, when Bluejay and his crew spot a wonderful area for seal hunting they dive with their hunting knives in hand, and they manage to catch many seals (4-5 seals each). But as they all start paddling  away from the village, they all feel water leaking into their canoes. They realize that Grouse must have also poked holes in their canoes before he sent them off. So Bluejay and his crew must embarrassingly get back to the shore by swimming, far behind the young men of the tribe who already have their seals caught.
    The last trial is an endurance test: Bluejay's entire crew must stay awake for five days, while pitted against four other men from the tribe. By the fourth day, all of the men in competition were getting excessively weary. Suddenly Bluejay had an idea: he took out the seal fat that he still had in his hip pouch and threw it at Land Otter, who started yelling at him and threw a clump of fat back at Bluejay. This continued until a fight broke out between the members of the crew. The young men in competition with Bluejay's party laughed and laughed at the sorry sight. They laughed so hard that they eventually wore themselves out and fell striaght to sleep. After he was sure that the young tribe-men were fast asleep, Bluejay told his men to stop: they all had bloodied each other quite a bit during the whole ordeal, but they realized then that Bluejay was just trying to keep them awake. Bluejay then urgently whispered to his crew to break for the tribes-men's canoes to escape, and that's exactly what they did.
    However, upon seeing the shore of their home village, Bluejay and his crew see Grouse, lying on the sand, happy as could be with a fresh meal of the most succulent seal meat around.

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"BlueJay and His Companions", from Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson (1929)

Author's Note: I pretty much kept the entirety of the tale the same as it was in the original, except for the black comedy/whimsical angle. The original tale was more of a story of bravery, and this didn't really make it very interesting for me. I thought the story of Bluejay and his companions could really benefit from a retelling that was more funny, but still dark (given the situations that they find themselves in).