It was the time when the Sun and the Moon were man and wife. It was believed that the Sun and the Moon descended to the earth through a hole in the Sky and at night returned through another hole to a better land.
However, Heng the Thunder God was very angry.
He thought that the Sun did not take good care of the Moon and that was the reason the Moon grew thinner and thinner every day.
So the Thunder God cast a giant black cloud across the shining face of the Sun.
When the Thunder God did this the heat from the Sun melted the cloud.
This resulted in a beautiful rainbow.
The animals of the forest saw the lovely rainbow and they all thought that this was a bridge to the sky.
They all rushed to their King the Old Turtle and they pleaded with the Turtle to go to the sky through the Rainbow Bridge.
However the Old Turtle asked them not to do that because he felt that the bridge could disappear after some time and if that happened, the animals that went to the sky would be stuck there.
Some of the animals went on the bridge while the others stayed back.
Like the Old Turtle had predicted, the Rainbow Bridge disappeared sometime later.
It is believed that the Gods outline the animals bodies in the stars and these are the constellations that people see in the sky.
Adapted from North American Indian Folk Stories
No comments:
Post a Comment