the boy who snared the sun

Shaiontoni says: You may like this story which also snares the sun and holds it down, in this case, to prevent it from rising. It was found in
American Indian Fairytales
Retold by W.T. Larned
Illustrated by John Rae
Derrydale, Randomhouse publishers

Iagoo the story teller tells the tale: “In the days of the great dormouse, In the days long long ago when there were many more animals than men on the earth, and the biggest of all beasts was Dormouse. Then something strange happened -- something that never happened before or since…….The story I am going to tell you is not so much about the dormouse as it is about a little boy and his sister. Yet had it not been for the Dormouse, I would not be here to tell you about it, and you would not be here to listen. The only people left on the whole earth were a young girl and her little brother.”

The boy was a dwarf and not more than three feet high but his sister was larger and stronger. She looked after him well but knew that he would have to take care of himself some day or the other. So she taught him the art of shooting and set him up with some bows and arrows. The boy was happy and one winter’s day he shot down some wild snowbirds. His sister sewed the skins together and made him a light coat to keep him warm. They boy strutted around “like a turkey cock” in his coat and one day decided to explore the world. He told his sister that he wanted to see whether, “you and I are the only persons living on earth? Perhaps if I look around I may find someone else. It will do no harm to try.” He walked and walked and walked and when he grew tired lay down to rest on the edge of a hill. Soon he was fast asleep and while he slept: “The bird skins of which the coat was made were still fresh, and …under the full glare of the sun they began to shrivel and shrink.”

The boy woke up and was very angry with the sun.” First he did nothing at all but stretch himself on the ground, where he lay for ten days without eating or moving. Then he turned over onto his side and lay there for ten days more. At last he rose to his feet…and said to his sister: “I have a plan to catch the sun in a noose. Find me something to make a snare.”

His sister got him some rough grass to twist into a rope but he said that would not do. She then cut her hair and braided it. This pleased him and he “drew it between his lips and as he did this it turned into a kind of metal, and grew much stronger and longer, until he had so much that he wound it around his body. In the middle of the night, he made his way to the hill, and there he fixed a noose at the place where the sun would rise. He had to wait a long time in the cold and darkness. But at last a faint light came into the sky. As the sun rose it was caught fast in the noose, and there it stayed.”

The rest of the world flapped around in the darkness. “Ad-ji-dau-mo, the squirrel, chattered and scolded from the branch of a pine tree. Kah-gah-gee, the raven flapped his wings and croaked more hoarsely than ever to tell the others that the end of the world had come. Only Muk-wa the bear did not mind, for it was winter, and the darker it was the better he liked it.”

“Wabun, the East Wind was the one who brought the news. He had drawn from his quiver the silver arrows with which he chased the darkness from the valleys. But the sun had not risen to help him and the arrows fell harmless to the earth. ‘Wake, wake!’ he wailed. ‘Someone has caught the sun in a snare. Which of all the animals will dare to cut the cord?’

The animals decided to go to Dormouse but he was fast asleep. So they went to An-ne-mee-kee, the thunder who went Boom! Boom! In the ear of Dormouse. “The biggest beast on earth slowly rose to his feet. In the darkness he looked bigger than ever, almost as big as a mountain. …………“’Now said Coyote to Dormouse,’ it is you that will have to free the sun. If he burned one of us, there would be little left but bones. But you are so big that if part of you is burned away there will still be enough. Then in that case you would not have to eat so much, or work so hard to get it.’

“Dormouse was a stupid animal and Coyote’s talk seemed true talk. Besides, as he was the biggest animal, he was expected to do the biggest things. So he made his way to the hill where the little boy had snared the sun, and began to nibble at the noose. As he nibbled away, his back got hotter and hotter. Soon it began to burn, until all the upper part of him burned away and became great heaps of ashes. At last when he had cut through the cord with his teeth, and set the sun free, all that was left of him was an animal no larger than an ordinary mouse. What he became then, so he is today…….”