The Boy who Set a Snare for the Sun

The Boy who Set a Snare for the Sun

Long ago, when animals understood human speech and people listened more closely to the wind, a sister and her little brother lived far from other homes.

The boy was tiny. Years passed, but he scarcely grew taller. His spirit, though, burned like a great flame in that little body. He wanted to do everything himself, know everything, and never admit that a task might be beyond him.

His sister took care of him and went every day to collect brushwood, berries and roots. The boy loved to wait for her at the edge of the forest and watch the snowbirds. They jumped between the logs, preened and left light feathers on the snow.

One day the boy began to collect those feathers.

“Sister, will you make me a warm collar out of them?” he asked.

“If you gather enough, I will,” she said with a smile.

He carefully collected feathers for several days. At last, his sister sewed him a small, handsome cape. He was so proud that he paraded before the house with his shoulders thrown back.

“Now I must be the most respectable man in the whole world!” he declared.

His sister laughed.

“The most respectable? Perhaps you should first grow as tall as my elbow?”

The boy laughed too, but the next day he decided to go further than he had ever walked before.

He walked for a long time on the snowy ground until he was tired. On the hill the sun warmed the grass, and the boy lay down to rest.

He slept only briefly. The sunlight grew so hot that his new feather cape shrivelled and darkened at the edges.

The boy woke up, saw his ruined clothes and got angry.

“Sun!” he exclaimed, raising his fist to the sky. “Do you think you’re sitting high up and no one can reach you? I’ll show you!”

In the evening he came back gloomy and didn’t even want to have dinner.

“The Sun did not mean to hurt you,” his sister said. “It simply shines and gives warmth.”

“It doesn’t matter! I’ll catch it.”

“The Sun?”

“The Sun itself.”

His sister shook her head. She knew it was useless to argue once her brother had made up his mind.

For days, he tried making a magic cord. His first was too weak, his next too coarse. Finally, his sister wove several of her long hairs into a slender cord.

“This one will hold,” the boy decided.

Before dawn he went to where, as he thought, the Sun touched the edge of the earth, and laid a magic loop in its path.

Morning came.

But the Sun had not risen.

The sky remained dark. The birds did not wake up. The flowers did not open. The animals came out of their hiding places and began to ask each other:

“Where is the morning?”

“Why is it still night?”

“Who took the light?”

At last, they held a council. The oldest animals guessed that something had caught the Sun near the horizon.

“We must set it free,” they said. “But who dares go so close? The heat is tremendous.”

In those days, the little dormouse was anything but little. The tale says she was the largest of all the animals, as broad as a hill.

The dormouse listened silently to the argument and said:

“If no one goes, I will go. Without light there will be no grass, no berries, no warmth.”

She moved towards the horizon.

The closer she got, the hotter the air became. The fur on her back heated up, her paws trembled, and the dormouse herself seemed to become smaller with each step.

But she did not turn back.

Finally she saw the Sun, caught by a magic cord.

“Just a little more,” the dormouse whispered.

She crept up to the loop and gnawed it. Once, twice, three times… Still the cord held.

The dormouse gathered her last strength.

Crunch!

The cord snapped.

The Sun rose at once into the sky. Golden light spread over the earth. Birds sang, flowers opened, and the animals called out joyfully.

But the dormouse returned tiny. Ever since, the old tale says, she has stayed that size.

And the boy stood near his house and watched the morning light up the earth again.

He no longer wanted to be angry.

“Sister,” he said quietly, “I think I wanted to punish the Sun, and I almost punished everyone.”

His sister sat beside him.

“And what are you going to do now?”

The boy looked up. The Sun was shining just as brightly as yesterday, as if it held no grudge against him.

“I will make a new cape,” he said. “And this time, I won’t sleep in the midday sun.”

The sister laughed.

“That is a wise idea.”

From then on, the boy left the Sun alone. And when he was angry, he remembered the dark morning and the little dormouse who had returned the light to the whole world.

Even a great grievance may matter less than one simple truth: light belongs to everyone.

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨