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The Boy in the Moon
In a village, there lived four brothers and their sister. The sister had a great who was also a boy. The brothers hunted and fished. The boy was lazy, but he fell in love with the girl.
One day the girl took a meal and went out of the house. There she noticed a ladder leading up to the sky with a line hanging down by the side of it. Taking hold of the line, the girl climbed a ladder going into the sky. Then her brother saw her leave and scold the boy. The boy caught up his trousers. Being in a hurry, he kicked them and ran outside. He saw the girl leaving and was climbing after her.
The girl became the sun and the boy was the moon. He pursues her but never overtakes her. The sun sinks into the west, the moon rises in the east, but it's too late. The moon has no food and almost fades away. Then the sun reaches out her meal, and the moon grows fat again.
Cradle Song
A woman sings to her little child to sleep. The wind blows over Yukon, and her husband hunts for deer. There is no wood for the fire, and the stone axe is broken, but her husband carries another.
The sun's warmth is gone? Maybe it hid in the beaver dam and waited for springtime?
Don't look not for ukali. The crows don't light on the ridge pole. Her husband died. She wonders why he waits in the mountains.
Where is my own? she asks. Did he lie starving on the hillside? Why did he linger? She will seek him if he doesn't come back soon.
The crow has come laughing at her. Its beak is red, and its eye glisten. It thanks the shaman for its meal. On the sharp mountain quietly lies her husband.
Twenty deet's tongues are tied to the pack of his shoulders. He doesn't call to his wife. Wolves, foxes, and ravens tear and fight for morsels. It's tough and hard to be strong, but not with a child held to her chest.
Over the mountain slowly staggers the hunter. Two bucks' thighs on his shoulders, with bladders of fat between them. The tongues are around his belt. He shouts for her to get wood.
Off the crow flew and said liar, cheat, and deceiver. She tells the child to call for their father.
He brings the child fresh backfat, marrow, and venison. Tired and worn, the husband carved a toy from the deer's horns, while he waits for the deer on the hillside. She tells the child to wake and see the crow hiding behind the arrow. She wants the child to wake and see their father.
Bibliography:
Cradle Song by Katharine Berry Judson (1911).
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