The right thing

Did you ever go out of your way to do what you thought was the right thing only to find that your actions actually led to something horrible? “The Hundredth Dove” by Jane Yolan is a story just like that. The story tells about a fowler named Hugh, who is very loyal to the king. Hugh is asked by the king to get 100 doves to serve at his wedding to the future queen. Little did the fowler know that his loyalty to the king would actually mean the death of the future queen.

Although the king was set on having 100 doves at his wedding, the queen, who was secretly a dove herself, was not at all for the idea. She begged the king not to go after the doves and said, “Please do not serve them sire.” But as irony would have it, the king did not know that the queen was actually a dove, so he did not listen to her. Later this would prove to be a very big mistake. He gave the orders to Hugh to go and get the 100 doves saying, “Do not fail me fowler.”

Even though the fowler was the king’s best at capturing birds, he always seemed to come up just one short. The 100th dove, like the queen, was described as being very beautiful, and she always seems to get away in the story. When Hugh finally captured her, she offered him several bribes to let her go including, fame, silver and gold and the love of the queen. The fowler refuses and instead follows his motto to “servo.” He remembers his loyalty to the king and snaps the white dove’s neck and she dies. The very motto that fowler followed actually lead to the death of the future queen.
Although the story led the reader to believe it was the future queen whose neck was actually snapped, the author adds a little mystery to the story by not actually saying it exactly that way. Instead she gives the reader the idea that the future queen is dead when she writes, “There never was a wedding,” which gives the reader a clue that she actually died after all of that hunting for the 100 doves.

Most of us can relate to a time when we actually worked really hard at doing what we thought was the right thing, only to find out the opposite. Like fowler, I once put a lot faith into following someone’s orders. It was an older friend who was always asking me to do stuff for him. Usually he had good ideas, but once he asked me to throw a can of mosquito spray into a campfire. I was a bit younger, but I really looked up to this guy and wanted to be loyal. I threw the spray into the fire, and a big explosion happened. Luckily, nobody was injured. Unlike this story.

“The Hundredth Dove” offers many lessons. The one I really related to was to be sure that the person you are being loyal to is really the best one to be taking advice from. Perhaps questioning, even a friend or person in charge, is a better way to go instead of blindly following orders. I am getting much better at this.