Skip to main content

Week 10 Story : Moon Chasing Sun


A long time ago, in a village by a great river, there lived a family of twelve brothers and one beautiful sister. There was also a young boy who was good friends with these siblings. Now this was a time when the earth was still waking up and the stars were just beginning to bleed into the sky.

Between the twelve brothers, there was a master in nearly every skill needed by the villagers. Some were phenomenal hunters who often went to the mountains to hunt deer. Some were skilled craftsmen who made houses and canoes. Some were blacksmiths, others were scientists and mathematicians.

But the boy was very lazy. While the brothers worked, he often hung around their house with the sister. She was very hard working, just like her brothers. She spent her days gathering berries and preparing the meat her brothers would bring back. Before, the boy was quite frail and nothing but bones, but thanks to the sister's kindness, he got rounder and rounder. He filled himself on the dishes of berries and meat she offered him. Because his heart was in his belly, the boy soon fell in love with the girl.

One day, the girl went out of her house with a dish of meat and berries and saw a rope next to a tall ladder in the sky. She grabbed hold of this rope and began climbing into the sky.

With a cry, the brothers rushed to the ladder. They scolded the boy harshly for his laziness and told him to go after their sister. Stumbling out of his house, the boy fumbled to put on his trousers and socks. By the time he reached the ladder, the girl was already very far into the sky. Nevertheless, the boy continued after the girl he loved, who was floating so far above him.

Since the earth and the skies were just waking up, they didn't know what to do with these two creatures who came from the ground so far below. So the girl became the sun and the boy became the moon. He ever pursues her but can never overtake or catch up to her. Whenever the sun begins to set in the west, the moon is just beginning to rise in the east. Sometimes, his chase makes him so weary that he withers away to the sliver he was before, almost disappearing. But at these times, the girl offers up her dish of meat and berries, and the boy once again becomes full.



Myths and Legends of Alaska: The Boy in the Moon. Edited by Katharine Berry Judson (1911). Web Source.

Author's Note: This story was inspired by one of the tales in the Alaskan unit. The original story was quite dry, very folklorey in nature. It made me imagine people sitting by a fire and passing stories like this down. I tried to make it a bit more narrative for story telling purposes and fleshed out some of the details. I was so charmed by the original story, more so by the details of the boy getting fat again after it the moon becomes small. It was so fun to imagine how Native Americans created this story to explain the cycles of the moon. 

Comments

  1. Hey again, Moriah!

    Wow, I have never read the original story but I absolutely loved your version! It is so cute and sweet and I love how it explains why there is a sun and a moon and why the moon waxes and wanes! I am curious, why was there a rope and a ladder leading to the heavens? I am not familiar with the original so maybe you could explain this in your version! Great job on this--I always anjoy reading your stories!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Moriah!

    I definitely agree with you that this story is really charming. I think your retelling made it even more charming since it was really easy to read but the narrative provided just enough detail! I know in lots of mythological stories, brothers and sisters also become husband and wife even though it's pretty strange, so I was wondering if that was the situation for this story, or if it was just that the boy especially loved his sister out of his siblings because of the meals she gave him? Nice job, this was a great read!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love your interpretation of this story! I also read the Alaskan tales unit and to be honest, I felt like a lot of them lacked detail. You've done a great job adding in visual detail to give the story more texture and depth. "...the stars were just beginning to bleed into the sky" is such a good description - it could easily refer to early evening or to the beginning of time. Great work.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reading Notes : Hans Christian Andersen, Part B

ANOTHER FAVORITE. The Little Mermaid is such a classic, and the original slaps. I guess I am old and beaten down now, but this version is my new favorite. The Disney version will always have a special place in my heart and be a part of my childhood, but his original version is so poetic. It is definitely more my style; it leaves an impression when the heroine doesn't get to live happily ever after, which is okay too! The world Hans Christian Andersen weaves is glorious . I could feel the mermaid's pain, urgency, and suffocating need to love and be loved. This is a story that will never get old, part of it due to how beautifully it is written. One of my favorite parts is when he describes the five older sisters and the things they experienced going to the surface for the first time. The scenes he paints makes me feel like I am experiencing those beautiful landscapes for the first time, too. Often time mermaids are fantasized, and it was interesting seeing it from the other per...

Reading Notes : Heroes, Part A

One thing I really enjoyed so far about this reading is how long the stories are. Instead of individual stories per chapter, each of these takes up about three chapter for one story. I felt like this really helped with character and plot development. Also, unlike the Alaskan stories I read last week, these stories were a bit more realistic, in the sense that they took place (mainly) on earth with real animals and real events in nature. Everyone loves a good hero story, and all of these were untraditional in their own way which made them interesting. One that I particularly liked centered around a bluejay, whose selfish actions were the reason he got sent on a journey to begin with. But upon his return, despite overcoming many obstacles, his life is pretty much the same before. It was interesting how their definition of hero is quite different from those we typically think of. For humans, it means dominating as the top species. For animals, it usually means just surviving.  At ti...

Reading Notes : Hans Christian Andersen, Part A

I was able to revisit some of my favorite stories from my childhood with this reading. The work of Hans Christian Andersen is so iconic and touching even now. It is really different reading these stories as an adult than as a child; what I took literally before is now so symbolic. I hadn't read the story of the little tin soldier in so long, and with it came a flood of memories. One thing I really love about his writings is how visual they are. For kids, it helps immerse them in the world he is trying to make and really experience the story with the character. For adults, there is something kind of sad and wistful about it. His creativity brings the situations to life in a very enjoyable way. One way he does this is through the flow of the story; it read extremely well and is easy to follow. The narrative is super smooth and beautiful to read, which is a big plus. There is nothing 'hard' or difficult to read about it, and it isn't tedious or repetitive either. Every s...