The Girl Who Loved The Stars

There was once a young girl who loved the stars and wanted nothing more than to be able to reach up to the sky and catch one for herself. Every night when the sun went down and the sky was clear, she would stand at her bedroom window and stretch her hand out as far as she could reach, but no matter how far she stretched, or how close the stars seemed to be at the ends of her fingertips, she could never quite touch them. 

Maybe, she thought, if I was just a little taller, I’d be able to catch one.

And so she went to her little desk and took her chair and dragged it to the window, but even when she stood upon it the stars still danced far beyond her grasp. The girl sat down and put her head in her hands and wept bitterly. Outside her window stood a great oak tree that heard her weeping and asked her what was wrong.

“Oh Grandfather Oak,” she sobbed, “can you help me? I want to catch a star to keep it for my very own but I’m not tall enough. Can you reach up to the sky for me?”

The oak tree sighed and rustled its branches sadly, for it wanted to help the girl.

“I’m sorry little one,” it whispered, “but even with my great height I cannot reach into the sky. Perhaps you could find where the stars come from and go there to find yourself one.”

At this, the girl stopped her crying and raised her head. The moon shone down on her face and made her tears look like tiny stars. She smiled.

“What a wonderful idea! Do you know where the stars come from?”

The oak tree creaked and groaned and thought very hard. It was very old and had seen a great many things, but could not recall ever having known from whence the stars came.

“All I can tell you,” it said, “is that it seems to be in a star’s nature to move about in the heavens, excepting one.” Here it rustled its branches again, pointing to a bright star in the sky. “I am sure that if you follow that star, it will lead you to the answers you seek.”

“Thank you Grandfather Oak,” the girl cried happily, and she took her coat and put on her shoes and set off in the direction of the great bright star.

After walking for some time, she came to a millpond and sat down beside it to rest her legs. 

“Good evening millpond,” she said.

“Good evening lassie,” the pond replied, “what brings you here tonight?”

“I’m trying to find out where the stars come from so that I might go there and catch myself one.”

“That’s easy then,” the pond said, “they’re right here. They shine in my face every night and I can’t sleep for their brightness. Jump in and I’m sure you’ll catch one.”

And so the girl jumped into the millpond and swam and swam but she couldn’t find a single star.

“Oh it’s useless!” she cried. “The stars aren’t here at all!”

“Well,” said the millpond, “they were until you started splashing about. Perhaps you scared them away.”

The girl climbed out of the water and sat down to dry herself, sighing deeply. Just then, two fish poked their faces out of the water.

“Don’t despair,” they said to her, “the stars don’t live here, they’re nothing but a reflection in the millpond’s face. We’ll tell you the tale of how the stars came to be and then you’ll see.”

The Fishes’ Tale

Long ago and far away, in a little village by the sea there lived a young girl not so different from yourself. A fisherman’s daughter, she was used to her father and uncles leaving for many days at a time to fish, but this was in the days where only the sun and the moon travelled the skies, and on nights when the moon was dark, there was no light to see by and nothing to guide the fishermen home. It was a dangerous job, and every time her father would leave, the girl would beg him not to go.

“Papa, it’s not safe!” she would cry, “I’m afraid you won’t come home again.”

But her father would always leave her at home with her mother and set sail. One evening, when there was due to be no moon in the sky, the girl’s father prepared to leave as usual and, as usual, she begged and pleaded with him not to go.

“Papa, how will you see to come home? It will be so dark.”

“Don’t worry my love, it will be alright. You stay with your mother now and be a good girl.” and he pushed her towards her mother and turned away down the quay with his brothers. The girl was distraught. Sobbing, she fled her mother’s arms and ran away to the cliff top where she could still see the sun going down and she wept and wailed and made quite the noise.

The sun, on hearing the fuss, asked her what was wrong.

“My Papa and uncles are going to sea to fish and there will be no moon in the sky tonight to guide them. I’m so afraid that they will get lost and won’t ever find their way home again.”

The sun thought for a moment, then he took one of his rays and threw it as hard as he could against the roof of the sky where it shattered into thousands of tiny pieces which covered the heavens and became beautiful twinkling stars.

“There you go,” he said, “now they will always have something to navigate home by.”

“So you see,” said the fish, “you won’t find the stars by swimming in a millpond.”

The girl nodded and dried her tears.

“Thank you fishes!” she cried, and hurried on her way.

Some time later, she came to a river.

“Good evening river,” she said.

“Good evening, little one,” the river gurgled, “what brings you to my banks tonight?”

“I’m searching for the stars. I want to find where they come from so that I can go there and capture one for myself.”

“Well then look no further! They’re right here, they glisten on my banks at night. Paddle around and you might catch one.”

The girl took off her shoes and waded into the river. She paddled and paddled but couldn’t see any stars, only ears of corn in the fields that lined the banks.

“It’s hopeless,” she sighed. “I can only see corn, not stars,” and she climbed out of the river and was about to go on her way when she saw a swan gliding towards her.

“Don’t fret,” said the swan, “you won’t find the stars on the banks of the river, they haven’t lived there for many years. Sit awhile and I’ll tell you how they came to be in the sky.”

The Swan’s Tale

Many years ago when the world was young and there were only a few stars in the sky, in a small village there lived an old man and an old woman who ground corn into meal to trade for meat and furs.  One morning when they went to work, they saw that someone had taken some cornmeal from their storage baskets in the night. They were dismayed; no one in the village stole from each other and they knew there had to be another explanation. As they stood and pondered, the old woman suddenly pointed at the ground. There, in the mud were the paw prints of a giant dog. The old man and the old woman were afraid, they knew that it was no ordinary dog that had made such large tracks and they went immediately to the village elders to discuss what was to be done. After some lengthy discussions, it was decided that the villagers would gather that night with all of the things they could think of that would make a noise and frighten the beast away.

When night fell, they gathered near the storage baskets and waited silently, clutching rattles and drums and pots and pans. They waited for many hours and were beginning to give up hope when they heard a thudding noise like paws on the ground, only it was coming from the sky. From their hiding places, the people looked up and saw a great dog descending from the heavens, its coat shining silver in the moonlight. It landed and began eating huge mouthfuls of cornmeal from the baskets. On seeing this, the villagers leapt out and began making such a racket it sounded as loud as thunder and the dog turned and ran. The people ran after it beating their drums and shaking their rattles and bashing their pots and pans until the dog took a flying leap from a hilltop and into the sky. It ran and it ran until it was out of sight, but as it went, the cornmeal in its mouth spilled out and made a pathway across the sky and every grain of cornmeal became a star. To this day, that pathway is called “where the dog ran”.

“Look up and you will understand. We birds use it as a pathway to show us the way to warmer places when the air turns cold in winter. Perhaps if you too follow it, you will find what you are looking for.”

With that, the swan turned and paddled serenely away.

“Thank you!” the girl called after it, and then she turned her face to the sky and began to follow the path of stars. 

The girl walked and walked for many days and weeks, and she began to get lonely and wished that she had a friend to talk to. Eventually one night, when she was overcome by tiredness she stopped in a cave to rest and pulled her coat around her like a blanket. She was just falling asleep when she saw a bear coming towards her through the trees and she realised that she must have trespassed in its cave. She stumbled to her feet, pulling her coat around her and she stammered,

“Good evening, bear. I’m terribly sorry to be in your cave but I was so tired and lonely. I’ll be on my way now.”

The bear stopped and looked at her.

“And where might your way be, exactly, tiny one?” it growled.

“I-I’m looking for the stars. I want to find them and catch one to keep.”

“Well,” rumbled the bear, “not much point in that. Sit, and I’ll tell you why you’ll never catch one.”

The Bear’s Tale

Long, long ago when the Great Spirit first created the world there were no humans, only animals, and no night, only unending day, and everyone lived in harmony. But one day, the animals began to argue. No one remembers quite why, but they shouted and yelled and bickered and fought and made so much noise that eventually the Great Spirit heard and wondered what was happening. He looked and saw that the animals were fighting amongst themselves and he told them to stop at once, but the fighting was so loud that the animals didn’t hear him, so he took his great blanket and threw it over the world and everything went dark. At this the animals fell silent, for they did not understand. All at once they began to shout to the Great Spirit to ask him for forgiveness, but they received no answer. After a long time of asking, the animals decided that one among them must go and pull the blanket down.

“I’ll go,” said Bear, “I’m the biggest and strongest of all the animals.”

Bear set off and climbed the tallest mountain that almost touched the sky with its point. When she reached the top, she stretched up as high as she could and swiped at the blanket with one huge paw, but she couldn’t quite reach, and only managed to make a rip across the sky. Bear had reached too far and couldn’t keep her balance and she fell all the way down the mountain, back to where the animals were waiting.

“I’ll go,” said Vulture, “you couldn’t reach high enough but I can fly the best out of all the birds, I’ll go and I’ll tear the blanket down.” and off he flew. Back in those days, the vulture had a fine head of glossy feathers to match the rest of his body. He flew and flew as high and as hard as he could, until he reached the great blanket over the world, and he flapped his wings with all his might, stretched out his beak and flew straight into the blanket. But he was tired, and had used up all of his energy flying so high, so he only managed to stick his head through the fabric, where he got stuck. On the other side, all of the light of the sun was concentrated on Vulture’s head, and it was so hot that it burnt all of the fine feathers there, leaving him bald. Vulture gave a great squawk and pulled as hard as he could to free himself, but he was too tired to flap his wings once he was free and he tumbled all the way back down to the earth.

Through all of this, the littlest hummingbird had been thinking. 

“I might be small,” she thought, “but I bet I could make it up there.” and very quietly, without saying a word to anyone, she flew off into the darkness. When she reached the blanket, she pecked a tiny hole, and a little light came through. She pecked again, and again, and again and made thousands of tiny holes. Back down on the ground, the animals had started to argue again about who should try next, when suddenly they looked up and saw the tiny points of light in the sky and thought how beautiful it looked. They forgot all about their fighting and began to point out to each other how the tiny holes looked like pictures if you were to join them together, and no one noticed Hummingbird’s tiny, exhausted body fall back down to the ground.

Great Spirit saw, and gathered Hummingbird up and took her back to the animals, who were saddened that whilst they had been bickering, the tiniest among them had been the bravest and created such a thing of beauty. Great Spirit saw that they were sorry, and told them that he would remove the blanket and that they would have the light back again, but that for half of every day the blanket would go back on again, unmended, to remind them not to fight.

“Look,” the bear said, pointing up, “the rip from Bear’s claws is a great streak across the sky. Where Vulture poked his head through is the moon, and most beautiful of all; Hummingbird’s stars. You can’t catch a hole in a blanket.”

The girl was saddened, but she still resolved to continue on and so she bid goodbye to the bear and went on her way. In time, she came to a desert where she saw a campfire and, seated next to it, an old man.

“Good evening,” she said.

The old man looked up from his contemplation of the flickering flames.

“Good evening,” he said, “what brings you to my little fire?”

“I’m terribly hungry, I thought perhaps I could beg a little food from you before I carry on to find where the stars come from. I’m going to catch one and keep it for myself.”

“Is that so?” The old man looked up at the sky. “I had a friend once who came from the stars. He visited many planets and met a man who claimed to own all of the stars by virtue of the fact that he had thought of owning them first. He spent his life counting them, and storing the numbers in a bank. My friend thought him very strange.” The old man patted the ground beside him. “Sit awhile and tell me your story while you eat.”

The girl sat down and told the old man about the fishes in the millpond, the swan at the river and the bear in the cave and the tales they had told.

“I just don’t know who to believe,” she said, “I fear that I will never find the stars and catch one to keep for my own.”

The old man laughed. “Why, the stars are right there! And your friends who told you the tales are there in the stars too, look, there’s the bear, there the swan, and over there the fishes. You don't need to capture something for it to be yours; my friend once told me that you must love something for it to truly belong to you. Do you love the stars?”

“With all my heart,” she replied, and together they sat and watched the stars turning above them.