The Wolf And The Moon

The Wolf and the Moon

There was a time when there were no stars in the sky. At night there was only darkness.                                                                                                        When the Sun set, the people gathered around fires to warm themselves, but mostly to keep the shadows away.                                                                    The Sun lived in a castle in the sky to which he returned every night. At the gates, he was greeted by his beautiful daughter, the Moon.                                    The whole day she spend wandering in the clouds, watching the people on earth and wishing to be able to go down to them and be one of them.                        Time after time, she asked her father to allow her to go, but every time he denied her request, telling her tales of the cruelty and malice of the people, warning her, that nothing good ever came from there.                                                                But the Moon did not listen to her fathers’ warnings, and one night, she climbed out of her window and stepped down to earth.                                                  She wandered through a dark forest, the branches scratching her face, the thorns tearing her dress and the stones cutting her feet.                                        She walked for hours until she finally saw a light flicker through the trees.             As she stepped on a clearing, she saw a group of five men sitting around a fire.  Hesitantly she stepped into the light, not knowing what to expect.                         One of the men saw her and jumped on his feet. He was tall and handsome, with dark hair and green eyes. he invited the Moon to come and sit with them and even offered her some of the food they were eating and some of the wine they were drinking. She thanked them and asked for there names and what they were doing there.                                                                                               "My name is Wolf,“                                                                                              said the young man,                                                                                          “and these are my friends Bear, Lynx, Cougar, and Fox. We are on our way to the village on the other side of the forest. They say that we will surely find work there and a place to live."                                                                                        Then he asked for her name and where she was coming from.                              "My name is Moon,"                                                                                            she replied                                                                                                        "and I live in the sky with my father the Sun. He told me not to come here, that the people are cruel and evil, but I had to see for myself if that was true."              They asked her to stay until dawn and as the hours passed, she became more and more confident, that what her father told her was not the truth, but a lie to keep her from earth and the wonderful people there.                                              She fell in love with the young man named Wolf and promised to come back down to earth the next night, to see him again.                                                      And she kept her promise.                                                                                From that moment, she spend the nights on earth with Wolf and slept through the day, getting up just in time to greet her father at the gates as he came back. He would ask her about her day and every time she would think of something new she might have done.                                                                                  But one night the Moon forgot to close the window as she left, and the cold that filled the castle woke up the Sun. He went to her room to tell her to close the window, only to find her bed empty and untouched. He searched the whole castle but could not find her.                                                                                  So he went outside and looked down to earth. And there he saw the Moon, sitting at a fire with the five men. She was laughing and seemed joyful.                But her father was angry that she disobeyed him and thought of a way to punish her.                                                                                                                      The next day, when the Moon was sleeping, he transformed the men into animals. They scattered in the woods, not knowing what happened to them.        As he returned to the castle that evening, he told his daughter, that from now on, she was to walk the sky at night to give light to the people on earth even when he was asleep.                                                                                                    The Moon was devastated and cried bitter tears for she would never be able to meet her love again.                                                                                              As she walked across the sky, her tears turned into stars and every now and then, she would send one of them down to earth and people would wish upon them whenever they saw one.                                                                              For thousands of years, she walked the sky every night, sometimes almost as bright as the Sun himself and sometimes so faint that no creature could see her light.                                                                                                                        Some of them felt her sorrow whenever they looked up to the sky, and the sea rose up to her as she walked, to give her comfort and help her forget.                  But she never forgot her loved one, looking for him every night, not seeing him and wondering how he could be so cruel to leave her like that.                               And the Wolf did not forget either. Every night he howled at her, hoping that she would recognize him one day and come back to him.                                           But she never did.                                                                                                    And so the Wolf keeps howling at the Moon, and the Moon keeps wandering across the sky crying stars and looking for him.