English · Completing Story
King Bruce and the Spider
Completing story: Robert Bruce learns perseverance from a spider in a cave.
Defeated six times, Robert Bruce watches a spider try seven times and decides to fight again.
The story begins: Robert Bruce was the king of Scotland. He fought against the English many times and was defeated again and again. At last he fled and took shelter in a lonely cave.
The Story
Robert Bruce, king of Scotland, had fought the English six times and had been beaten six times. His soldiers were scattered, his friends had fallen, and he himself was hunted from place to place.
At last, weary and hopeless, he took shelter in a cave in the hills. There he lay on the bare ground, thinking that everything was lost and that he would never fight again.
As he lay there, his eye fell upon a spider hanging from a thread near the roof of the cave. The little creature was trying to reach a beam above and fix its web there.
The spider swung itself towards the beam and missed, and fell back on its thread. It climbed up and tried a second time, and failed again. A third time, a fourth, a fifth — and each time it fell back.
Bruce watched with growing interest. "This poor creature has failed as often as I have," he thought. "Let me see whether it will give up as I have done."
A sixth time the spider swung, and a sixth time it missed. Bruce held his breath. Then the spider gathered itself, swung out once more, and this time its foot caught the beam and held. In a moment it was safe, and it began at once to spin its web.
The king sprang to his feet. "If a spider can try seven times and succeed," he cried, "shall a king give up after six? I too will try once more."
He left the cave and sent word secretly to the few friends who remained. Slowly an army gathered around him again, and when at last he met the English in battle he fought as one who could not be beaten.
That day Robert Bruce won a great victory and freed his country. To the end of his life he remembered the spider in the cave, and never afterwards allowed himself to despair.
Moral: There is no failure except in no longer trying.
Frequently Asked Questions
That perseverance succeeds where despair fails — "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again". The story is usually set with the moral "there is no failure except in no longer trying", and the spider's seventh attempt is the turning point.
In the traditional telling, seven — six failures and a success on the seventh, matching Bruce's six defeats. Keeping the numbers parallel is what gives the story its point, so it is worth counting them deliberately as you write.
Briefly. The story is not about the battle but about the change in Bruce, so one short paragraph saying that he gathered an army and won is enough. Spending three paragraphs on the fighting shifts the story away from its moral.
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