About The Cowboy And The Rattlesnake

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This was the third story I did for Daily Kos and the second under the banner of Sunday Griot. Unlike The Wolf and the Dog, which was more or less a straight retelling of Aesop, The Cowboy and the Rattlesnake was an adaptation. The original version had a woodsman meet up with an adder along the side of the road. He took the adder home and killed it when it threatened one of his children. Changing the adder to a rattlesnake was a natural, and who better to meet up with a rattlesnake than a critter-lovin' cowboy?

I made a change to the original based on a comment by Daily Kos reader badger, who pointed out that a rattlesnake is unlikely to think a horse looks like a meal as I suggested on Daily Kos. I rewrote the last paragraph a bit for this blog with that suggestion in mind.