Story: Lau and his Betrayal

There once was a boy named Lau who lived with his parents that were very rich. In this family the parents provided everything this boy could ever imagine! Most of his days from the time he was a boy all the way up to when he was a young adult consisted of him doing nothing but lying around waiting for his servants to bring him what he wanted. His parents did not feel the need to make him go to school or really do any kind of real work since they had so much money he would never have to do much of anything. Until one day when Lau’s parents both fell very ill. This resulted in both of the parents' deaths following the next few days.

When Lau found out about the news he was extremely sad that he now had no parents. In the next few months to try and deal with the pain he would invite all of his friends over to play cards and gamble. The only problem with this was that since his parents were no longer here to regulate he spent all their money. This was a huge problem for Lau since he had never worked a day in his life and felt without money he would eventually lose all of his friends. A few days later Lau thought of a plan to be able to get all of his money back and keep his friends. Lau would just go to people around his village and ask to borrow money from them and he would eventually be able to pay them back!

After Lau went around the village and received money from everyone he could think of he went to gamble his way back into wealth.  

Months later Lau was broke and living on the streets. All of the people he had borrowed money from were looking to be paid back. Lau and his loan sharks knew he wasn’t going to be able to pay him back, so he came up with another idea. He gathered all the people he owed money to and told them that he had buried money near the river so that when he absolutely needed the money he would have it. Little did they know that Lau was only trying to lure them there so that he could jump into the river and drown himself instead of them killing him first. 

Lau had made the plunge into the water and got pulled into the rapids where he began to sink. 

Meanwhile, in a hidden spot across the river there lived an ancient silver deer named Juju. He watched this entire scenario unfold right in front of him. So once he saw all the other people leave this man in the water to die Juju took action! Juju sprinted to the riverbank and threw a rope over to him. With a few hefty pulls Juju was able to save the man from his own death. 

Juju understanding full well that he had never let any human know where he lived was a little worried about his safety after saving this person. The only thing Juju wanted in return from Lau was that he did not tell anyone about this hiding place to that people wouldn’t try to come and kill him. Lau promised that he wouldn’t tell anyone and he was very thankful that Juju saved him from his death. 

Lau was thankful that he was given a second chance now that all the people that wanted to kill him thought he was dead. He returned to his village for just a few hours before he left for his new life. Being in the village he heard an announcement directly from the King saying that if anyone knew the whereabouts of an ancient silver deer he would pay this person more gold then he could imagine. As soon as Lau heard this announcement his thoughts started to go crazy! He would be able to pay back all of his loans and move back into his old house by just showing them were Juju was! Without a second thought Lau ran to the King and told him he knew exactly where this deer was hiding! 

Lau was excited he was going to be able get all of his money back by just showing the King where this deer was hiding. However, once he got the King closer to where Juju’s home was Lau started to feel bad about betraying the one who saved his life. So when they were close enough Lau told the King the deer was just behind those bushes. However, Lau chose to hide behind this bush just far enough from Juju so he couldn't see him. 

The King had come into Juju’s secret hiding place to kill him but as soon as was about to shoot him Juju started to talk to the King. The King baffled by the fact that the deer could talk did not want to shoot him. So once they had sat down and talked for a while Juju wanted to know how he was able to find him. The King told him that a man named Lau told him where to find him.  

Immediately Juju was furious that the man he saved would sell him out for some gold. He told the King how he saved Lau’s life for him just to sell him out the King. Juju wanted to have justice for this betrayal!

The King pulled Lau out of his hiding place so that he could look at Juju face to face. Since he sold out the one that saved him he would not get any gold. On top of that he was going to be arrested for not being able to pay back his loans to the people of his Kingdom. It is better to repay your debts by working hard rather than finding the easy way out every time.

"White Stag":Source

Author’s notes:  This story is based off of Ruru the Golden Deer. This tale is a Jataka tale that was a little longer than I am use to reading and writing stories about so I had to kind of rush through it to get all the information in it.. I tried to tell the story more based off of Lau in the story other than Ruru in the original story. In the original story Ruru was the main character and his only goal was to not be hunted by anyone. So when he saved the man this was a huge deal for him since it gave away his hiding place. So I  mainly stuck to the original plot line that was in the comic but changed the names. I changed the boy’s name to Lau which means lazy in German to kind of give it a back meaning. Also Ruru’s name was changed to Juju as an attempt to give it a more modern twist to the story. I would want to focus more on the story line in revisions because to me I feel that I rushed through a lot of the story. I think it is a little long so I could probably benefit from putting more detail in the end of the story and not so much in the beginning of the story.  

Book Source Information: 

Bizzell Library
Deer Stories: The Gentle Wisdom of the Jataka
Author: Anant Pai