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.

Moon and Sun

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.